Peng Xiao

• PhD
• Research Associate at Wenzhou University

As our comprehension of cyanobacterial classification in diverse ecosystems broadens, it becomes essential to explore the biodiversity of lesser-known areas for a thorough understanding of both global and local diversity. This research, which is part of a larger investigation into soil biocrust algae diversity in the Sanyang Wetland located in Zhej...

Diafenthiuron is a novel derivative of thiourea and is highly toxic to non-target organisms, necessitating its efficient removal from wastewater before discharge. This study compared diafenthiuron removal efficiencies at a target concentration of 1 µM using three methods: a 4 mg/L ozone (O3) treatment; an ultraviolet (UV) light treatment, applying...

River ecosystems face escalating challenges due to altered flow regimes from human activities, such as urbanization with hydrological modifications. Understanding the role of microbial communities for ecosystems with changing flow regimes is still incomplete and remains at the frontier of aquatic microbial ecology. In particular, influences of rive...

Water quality and aquatic ecosystems along lakeshores are vital for ecological balance and human well-being. However, research has primarily focused on plankton, with benthic niches being largely overlooked. To enhance understanding of benthic microbial communities, we utilized 16S and 18S rRNA sequencing alongside multivariate statistical methods...

Introduction In riverine ecosystems, dynamic interplay between hydrological conditions, such as flow rate, water level, and rainfall, significantly shape the structure and function of bacterial and microeukaryotic communities, with consequences for biogeochemical cycles and ecological stability. Lake Taihu, one of China’s largest freshwater lakes,...

During the study of diversity in filamentous cyanobacteria in China, two strains (WZU0719 and WZU0723) with the form of thin filaments were isolated from the surface of Qiandao Lake, a large freshwater lake in Zhejiang Province, China. A comprehensive analysis was conducted, incorporating morphological, ecological, and molecular data. The morpholog...

Microeukaryotic plankton communities are keystone components for keeping aquatic primary productivity. Currently, variations in microeukaryotic plankton diversity have often been explained by local ecological factors but not by evolutionary constraints. We used amplicon sequencing of 100 water samples across five years to investigate the ecological...

Eutrophication of inland waters is a mostly anthropogenic phenomenon impacting aquatic biodiversity worldwide, and might change biotic community structure and ecosystem functions. However, little is known about the patterns of cyanobacterial community variations and changes both on alpha and beta diversity levels in response to eutrophication. Here...

Pyraclostrobin (PYR), a widely used fungicide, has negative effects on fish and algae, but its toxicity in protozoa remains unclear. In this study, the effects of PYR on the growth, oxidative stress, and gene expression related to stress and ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters in Tetrahymena thermophila were investigated. The result showed that...

Microeukaryotes are key for predicting the change of ecosystem processes in the face of a disturbance. However, their vertical responses to multiple interconnected factors caused by water mixing remain unknown. Here, we conducted a 12‐month high‐frequency study to compare the impacts of mixing disturbances on microeukaryotic community structure and...

Aim The geographical distribution of bacteria is an important, but poorly understood, topic in microbial ecology. A major question is how broadly distributed generalist taxa, and limitedly distributed specialist taxa, vary across a latitudinal gradient in freshwater ecosystems. We predict that: (a) generalists and specialists exhibit latitudinal di...

Tralomethrin, a synthetic pyrethroid insecticide used to control a wide range of pests in agriculture and public health, is highly toxic to aquatic organisms. However, data regarding the toxicity and underlying mechanisms of tralomethrin in aquatic organisms are limited. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the toxicity of tralomethrin in zebrafis...

Numerous studies have investigated the spatiotemporal variability in water microbial communities, yet the effects of relic DNA on microbial community profiles, especially microeukaryotes, remain far from fully understood. Here, total and active bacterial and microeukaryotic community compositions were characterised using propidium monoazide (PMA) t...

Cadmium (Cd) contamination poses a considerable threat to human health through grain enrichment and limits biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) in paddy fields. Biochar has shown great potential for agricultural soil remediation because it inactivates Cd, but uncertainties remain as to how biochar amendments affect BNF and grain N use efficiency in p...

A new filamentous cyanobacterial strain (CHAB 4127) was successfully isolated from the algal mat during the field investigation of the open channel from Luanhe River to Tianjin, China. The polyphasic approach combining morphological, ultrastructural, ecological, and molecular features was used to characterize this studied strain. The strain is morp...

Diafenthiuron, a broad-spectrum insecticide and acaricide used for agricultural crop protection, is highly toxic to nontarget organisms. However, the developmental toxicity of diafenthiuron and its underlying mechanisms are not fully understood. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate the developmental toxicity of diafenthiuron in zebraf...

Amisulbrom is an oomycete-specific fungicide that was developed by Nissan Chemical Industries Limited. The exposure of developing zebrafish embryo to amisulbrom caused disorders in the visual phototransduction system. However, the potential toxic mechanisms of amisulbrom on retinal development remains unclear. The research purpose of this study was...

Fluxapyroxad, a succinate dehydrogenase inhibitor (SDHI) fungicide, is commercialized worldwide to control a variety of fungal diseases. Growing evidence shows that fluxapyroxad is teratogenic to aquatic organisms. In this study, the influence of fluxapyroxad toward hematopoietic development was evaluated using zebrafish embryos which were exposed...

Interactions between heterotrophic bacteria and cyanobacteria regulate the structure and function of aquatic ecosystems and are thus crucial for the prediction and management of cyanobacterial blooms in relation to water security. Currently, abundant bacterial species are of primary concern, while the role of more diverse and copious rare species r...

Long-term of excessive fertilization using nitrogen (N) chemical fertilizer caused the acidification of paddy soils. Presently, the impacts of soil acidification on physiological characteristics of diazotrophic cyanobacteria remain unknown. In order to elucidate this issue, the effects of paddy floodwater acidification on activities of respiration,...

The intestine is a vital organ involved in chemical and nutrient uptake and biotransformation. Intestinal dysfunction can impair energy and material supply for reproduction. Isoflucypram, a new succinate dehydrogenase inhibitor fungicide, is highly toxic to aquatic systems. However, the chronic toxic effects of isoflucypram on intestinal differenti...

Microcystis-dominated blooms cause environmental and ecological impacts worldwide. However, it is sometimes challenging to correctly identify Microcystis and its related genera. Radiocystis fernandoi Komárek et Komáková-Legnerová 1993, characterized by large cells and correspondingly large colonies with gas vesicles, has been frequently found in cy...

Cyanobacterial blooms have become a serious global environmental issue due to their potential risk for releasing detrimental secondary metabolites into aquatic ecosystems, posing a great threat to water quality management for public health authorities. Aphanizomenon, a common filamentous cyanobacterial genus belonging to Nostocales, is under partic...

Aquatic biodiversity is important in mediating ecosystem functioning, contributing to ecosystem sustainability and human wellbeing. However, how microbial network complexity affects the biodiversity-nutrient cycling relationship in saline freshwater ecosystems remains underexplored. Using high-resolution time-series data, we examined the relationsh...

Ionic liquids (ILs) are known as “green solvents” and widely used in industrial applications. However, little research has been conducted on cyanobacteria This study was conducted to investigate the toxicity of ionic liquids ([Hmim]Cl) on Microcystis aeruginosa PCC7806. The EC50 (72 h) of [Hmim]Cl on the growth of Microcystis aeruginosa PCC 7806 wa...

Antibiotic resistance has been a serious global threat to environmental and human health. The “One Health” concept further emphasizes the importance of monitoring the large-scale dissemination of ARGs.

Urban freshwater ecosystems have important ecosystem functions, provide habitats for diverse microbial communities and are susceptible to multiple interconnected factors such as environmental pollution. Despite the ecological significance of bacteria and microeukaryotes, little is known about how their community assembly responds to various environ...

In the past decades, the taxonomic status of the cyanobacterial family Phormidiaceae has always been chaotic and problematic. In this study, filamentous cyanobacteria were investigated in the east of China, and twenty strains isolated from different locations of Zhejiang Province were characterized. Using the polyphasic approach combining morpholog...

Isoflucypram is an active succinate dehydrogenase inhibitor (SDHI) fungicide. Recent studies have demonstrated that isoflucypram is toxic to non-target aquatic organisms such as zebrafish, Danio rerio. However, current knowledge of the potential risks presented by the SDHI to non-target aquatic organism remains limited. To investigate the teratogen...

2000年以来，全球范围内内陆深水水体拉氏尖头藻（Raphidiopsis raciborskii）的检出率和水华事件日益增多，这种新型水华蓝藻具有产毒和无毒株系，其中能合成拟柱胞藻毒素（cylindrospermopsins，CYNs）的株系主要分布在澳大利亚和东南亚，严重威胁水生态系统和人类健康。本研究从福建省厦门市石兜水库分离出4株拉氏尖头藻（XM1−XM4），对其形态、遗传多样性和产毒特征进行了研究。显微观察结果表明，4株拉氏尖头藻形态特征基本一致，细胞平均长度为3.79−4.26 μm，藻丝体呈直线型、平均长度为122−199 μm，使用富含氮的BG11培养基培养后异形胞会消失。酶联免疫吸附（ELISA）试剂盒测定显示，4株拉氏尖头藻均为产毒藻株；液相色谱串联质谱(LC-MS/MS...

Fungicides are frequently detected in the water bodies, however, the adverse effects of these fungicides on aquatic lives remain limited. To better understand the adverse effects of amisulbrom (AML) and isoflucypram (ISO) on embryogenesis, zebrafish embryos were exposed to two different fungicides, 0.75 μM amisulbrom (AML) and 2.5 μM isoflucypram (...

Blooms of the toxic cyanobacterium, Raphidiopsis raciborskii (basionym Cylindrospermopsis raciborskii), are becoming a major environmental issue in freshwater ecosystems globally. Our precision prevention and early detection of R. raciborskii blooms rely upon the accuracy and speed of the monitoring method. A duplex digital PCR (dPCR) monitoring ap...

Bixafen, a pyrazole-carboxamide fungicide, is a potent toxicant that may elicit multiple adverse effects in non-target organisms. However, knowledge of the mechanisms involved in developmental defects caused by bixafen in aquatic organisms remains limited. In this study, the effects of bixafen on retinal development were evaluated in embryo-larval...

Fluxapyroxad (FLU) is a succinate dehydrogenase inhibitor that protects crops from fungal diseases, however, it has been identified as toxicants to aquatic organisms. The objective of this study is to investigate the potential toxicity and underlying mechanisms of FLU on aquatic organisms. Herein, by using zebrafish embryos as a model organism, we...

Benfuracarb (BEN), a broad-spectrum carbamate insecticide used for crop protection, is considered toxic to humans and aquatic organisms. However, the potential risk level of BEN to aquatic organisms is still unclear. In this study, we exposed zebrafish embryos to BEN (0.08, 0.49, and 0.90 mg/L) from 3 to 96 h post-fertilization (hpf). The results s...

Bixafen (BIX) is a succinate dehydrogenase inhibitor (SDHI)-class fungicide that is used to control crop diseases. However, data on the toxicity of BIX to zebrafish are limited. Here, zebrafish embryos were exposed to 0.1, 0.3, and 0.9 μM BIX. After BIX exposure, zebrafish embryos exhibited cardiac dysplasia and dysfunction, including pericardial e...

Background Freshwater salinization may result in significant changes of microbial community composition and diversity, with implications for ecosystem processes and function. Earlier research has revealed the importance of large shifts in salinity on microbial physiology and ecology, whereas studies on the effects of smaller or narrower shifts in s...

Investigation of bacterial community dynamics across different time scales is important for understanding how environmental conditions drive community change over time. Bacterioplankton from the surface waters of a subtropical urban reservoir in southeast China were analyzed through high-frequency sampling over 13 months to compare patterns and eco...

Recent research has greatly expanded our understanding of microbial metacommunities in aquatic ecosystems. However, patterns at the mesoscale are still poorly understood. We present the first simultaneous analyses of the biogeography and co‐occurrence patterns of generalists and specialists marine bacteria from three subtropical bays of China and t...

Harmful cyanobacterial blooms pose a risk to human health worldwide. To enhance understanding on the bloom-forming mechanism, the spatiotemporal changes in cyanobacterial diversity and composition in two eutrophic lakes (Erhai Lake and Lushui Reservoir) of China were investigated from 2010 to 2011 by high-throughput sequencing of environmental DNA....

Conditionally rare bacteria are ubiquitous and perhaps the most diverse of microbial lifeforms, but their temporal dynamics remain largely unknown. High-throughput and deep sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene has allowed us to identify and compare the conditionally rare taxa with other bacterioplankton subcommunities. In this study, we examined the eff...

Aquatic environments serve as important reservoirs of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs), but the information on the high-resolution temporal pattern of ARGs in waterbodies is extremely limited. In this study, the weekly dynamics of ARGs and their relationships with microbial taxonomic communities and environmental variables were analyzed in a subt...

Bacterial antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs), a kind of emerging environmental pollutants, greatly threat human health through pathogenic bacteria. High-throughput quantitative PCR (HT-qPCR) and metagenomic approaches are two popular tools applied in aquatic environmental ARGs monitoring. However, current poor knowledge of different ARG profiling a...

Although it is widely recognized that cyanobacterial blooms have substantial influence on the plankton community in general, their correlations with the whole community of eukaryotic plankton at longer time scales remain largely unknown. Here, we investigated the temporal dynamics of eukaryotic plankton communities in two subtropical reservoirs ove...

Epigenetic modifications such as DNA methylation are well known as connected with many important biological processes. Rapid accumulating evidence shows environmental stress can generate particular defense epigenetic changes across generations in eukaryotes. This transgenerational epigenetic inheritance in animals and plants has gained interest ove...

Numbers and proportions of mC sites in each context under normal nitrogen (NC), nitrogen starvation (N72), and nitrogen recovery (NR).

Numbers and proportions of genes with mC sites under normal nitrogen (NC), nitrogen starvation (N72), and nitrogen recovery (NR).

Box plot showing methylation level of mC sites exclusively within TEs under normal nitrogen (NC), nitrogen starvation (N72), and nitrogen recovery (NR). Sites for methylcytosine under nitrogen starvation have higher-median and wider-range methylation level than those under normal nitrogen.

The KEGG pathway enrichments of genes in hyper-methylated regions (A) and genes hypo-methylated regions (B) after nitrogen starvation.

Methylation site ratio (sites for methylcytosine vs. plasmid nucleotides) of chromosomes and plasmids under normal nitrogen (A), nitrogen starvation (B), and nitrogen recovery (C). No methylcytosine was detected in pSYSA_M, and pSYSG_M had the highest methylation site ratios in all the three samples.

Box plot showing methylation level of sites for methylcytosine within gene body, intergenic region, upstream, and downstream region under normal nitrogen (NC), nitrogen starvation (N72), and nitrogen recovery (NR). No obvious difference in distribution of methylation level among different functional regions could be found.

Venn diagram showing overlapped mC sites exclusively within transposable elements (TEs) (A) and overlapped TEs with mC sites (B) among normal nitrogen (NC), nitrogen starvation (N72), and nitrogen recovery (NR).

Specific growth rates of NC sample and NR sample re-cultured in N1/3 BG11. Data represent means ± SDs from three biological replicates. The difference between the two samples was not significant (p> 0.05).

Primers used in this study.

Background Individual nutrient depletion is widely used to induce lipid accumulation in microalgae, which also causes cell growth inhibition and decreases the total biomass. Thus, improving the lipid accumulation without biomass loss in the nutrient deficiency cells becomes a potential cost-effective treatment for cheaper biofuels. Methods In this...

Background Microalgae have been demonstrated to be among the most promising phototrophic species for producing renewable biofuels and chemicals. Ethanol and butanol are clean energy sources with good chemical and physical properties as alternatives to gasoline. However, biosynthesis of these two biofuels has not been achieved due to low tolerance o...

There is limited information about the ecology of freshwater flatworms in China, in particular, the members of the genus Macrostomum. Surveying freshwater bodies to explore the species diversity is the first step to obtain more ecological information about those flatworms. We hereby report the discovery of two new species of freshwater flatworms in...

Here we present the 15 pseudochromosomes of sweet potato, Ipomoea batatas, the seventh most important crop in the world and the fourth most significant in China. By using a novel haplotyping method based on genome assembly, we have produced a half haplotype-resolved genome from ~296 Gb of paired-end sequence reads amounting to roughly 67-fold cover...

Cyanobacterial blooms in eutrophic lakes are severe environmental problems worldwide. To characterize the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of cyanobacterial blooms, a high-throughput method is necessary for the specific detection of cyanobacteria. In this study, the cyanobacterial composition of three eutrophic waters in China (Taihu Lake, Dongqian Lak...

The cyanobacterial genus Microcystis is well known as the main group that forms harmful blooms in water. A strain of Microcystis, M. panniformis FACHB1757, was isolated from Meiliang Bay of Lake Taihu in August 2011. The whole genome was sequenced using PacBio RS II sequencer with 48-fold coverage. The complete genome sequence with no gaps containe...

Microalgae are regarded as the most promising biofuel candidates and extensive metabolic engineering were conducted but very few improvements were achieved. Long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) investigation and manipulation may provide new insights for this issue. LncRNAs refer to transcripts that are longer than 200 nucleotides, do not encode proteins bu...

Although the sweet potato, Ipomoea batatas, is the seventh most important crop in the world and the fourth most significant in China, its genome has not yet been sequenced. The reason, at least in part, is that the genome has proven very difficult to assemble, being hexaploid and highly polymorphic; it has a presumptive composition of two B 1 and f...

Background Microalgae have been recognized as a good food source of natural biologically active ingredients. Among them, the green microalga Euglena is a very promising food and nutritional supplements, providing high value-added poly-unsaturated fatty acids, paramylon and proteins. Different culture conditions could affect the chemical composition...

Lake Taihu, which is the third largest freshwater lake in China, has experienced extensive cyanobacterial (Microcystis spp.) blooms over the past two decades. However, the distribution, dynamics and succession of the blooms have not been fully studied. To better understand the basic characteristics of Microcystis blooms in Lake Taihu, samples were...

Cyanobacteria are the primary colonizers and form a dominant component of soil photosynthetic communities in biological soil crusts. They are crucial in improving soil environments, namely accumulating soil carbon and nitrogen. Many classical studies have examined cyanobacterial diversity in desert crusts, but relatively few comprehensive molecular...

The earthy-musty compounds geosmin and 2-methylisoborneol (MIB) produced by cyanobacteria are considered as the main biological causes of off-flavor events, especially in aquatic ecosystems. More than 50 filamentous cyanobacteria species have been documented as geosmin or MIB producers; however, little is known about the species coproducing these t...

Previous studies on the diversity and composition of nifH genes in the South China Sea (SCS) were mainly based on quantitative PCR and DNA clone methods. The pyrosequencing results of partial nifH gene fragments were used to study the spatiotemporal heterogeneity in composition and diversity of diazotrophs in the SCS. Seawater samples were collecte...

Increasing reports of cylindrospermopsins (CYNs) in freshwater ecosystems have promoted the demand for identifying all of the potential CYN-producing cyanobacterial species. The present study explored the phylogenetic distribution and evolution of cyr genes in cyanobacterial strains and water samples from China. Four Cylindrospermopsis strains and...