Modeling the Effects of Hydrodynamic Regimes on Microbial Communities within Fluvial Biofilms: Combining Deterministic and Stochastic Processes

To fully understand the effects of hydrodynamics on a microbial community, the roles of niche-based and neutral processes must be considered in a mathematical model. To this end, a two-dimensional model combining mechanisms of immigration, dispersal, and niche differentiation was first established to describe the effects of hydrodynamics on bacterial communities within fluvial biofilms. Deterministic factors of the model were identified via the calculation of Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients between parameters of hydrodynamics and the bacterial community. It was found that turbulent kinetic energy and turbulent intensity were considered as a set of reasonable predictors of community composition, whereas flow velocity and turbulent intensity can be combined together to predict biofilm bacterial biomass. According to the modeling result, the bacterial community could get its favorable assembly condition with a flow velocity ranging from 0.041 to 0.061 m/s. However, the driving force for biofilm community assembly changed with the local hydrodynamics. Individuals reproduction within the biofilm was the main driving force with flow velocity less than 0.05 m/s, while cell migration played a much more important role with velocity larger than 0.05 m/s. The developed model could be considered as a useful tool for improving the technologies of water environment protection and remediation.