Deciphering strategies of a river-sediment microbial community to cope with anthropogenic metal contamination

Metal contamination poses biotoxicity and bioaccumulation issues, affecting both abiotic conditions and biological activity in ecosystems. For a century, the MetalEurop foundry released zinc, copper, cadmium and lead directly into the river "la Deûle", resulting in a 30-fold increase in metal concentrations in downstream sediments compared to upstream. We used an integrative approach coupling in situ sequencing of both DNA and RNA, Horizontal Gene Transfer analysis (HGT), and microcosm monitoring in order to fully understand the mechanisms driving community adaptation to metal pollution. We applied the ecological concept of Functional Response Groups (FRGs) to decipher the adaptive toleranc…