Renhui Li

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Professor 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...

Chlorophyll (Chl) f was reported as the fifth Chl in oxygenic photoautotrophs. Chlorophyll f production expanded the utilization of photosynthetically active radiation into the far‐red light (FR) region in some cyanobacterial genera. In this study, 11 filamentous cyanobacterial strains were isolated from FR‐enriched habitats, including hydrophyte,...

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,...

Microbial communities are integral to aquatic ecosystems, playing key roles in biogeochemical cycles, nutrient recycling, and ecosystem functioning. Despite their importance, the temporal dynamics of these communities, especially in response to short-term environmental changes, remain inadequately understood. This study utilizes high-throughput amp...

Cyanobacterial mats supplanting coral and spreading coral diseases in tropical reefs, intensified by environmental shifts caused by human-induced pressures, nutrient enrichment, and global climate change, pose grave risks to the survival of coral ecosystems. In this study, we characterized Okeanomitos corallinicola gen. and sp. nov., a newly discov...

The recent discovery of nanoplastics in most ecosystems is a major, yet poorly known health issue. Here, we review nanoplastics with focus on their presence in the environment, their methods of detection, and their impact on the nitrogen cycle. Nanoplastics are widely distributed in ecosystems; however, their real concentrations are not known due t...

The rising aquaculture industry has induced an increase in aquaculture waste, calling for advanced methods to recycle waste in the context of the circular economy. Here, we review methods to treat aquaculture wastewater such as the biofloc technique, aquaponic-aquaculture, rice-fish co-culture, microalgae culture, algal–bacterial culture, membrane...

Microseira wollei, a globally distributed freshwater bloom-forming benthic cyanobacterium, is known for its production of cyanotoxins and taste and odor (T&O). While CYN (Cylindrospermopsin)-producing populations of M. wollei are confined to Australia, PST (Paralytic shellfish toxins)-producing populations have been exclusively documented in North...

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...

To increase the understanding of simple thin filamentous cyanobacteria in harsh environmental areas, we previously isolated and identified four strains (XN101, XN102, GS121, NX122) from desert soils and hot spring in China. As a result, two new Oculatellacean genera of these four strains, Gansulinema gen. nov. and Komarkovaeasiopsis gen. nov., are...

Harmful cyanobacterial blooms (CyanoHABs) impact lakes, estuaries, and freshwater reservoirs worldwide. The duration, severity, and spread of CyanoHABs have markedly increased over the past decades and will likely continue to increase. This article addresses the universal phenomena of cyanobacterial blooms occurring in many freshwater ecosystems wo...

There are few comparative studies of chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) in humid temperate lakes. In this study, we examined the ultraviolet absorption of water sampled from temperate lakes in Japan and China. A proportional relationship was found between the dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentration and ultraviolet absorption coeffici...

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...

Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) as nonbiodegradable organic pollutant, its presence and risks in wastewater treatment system has aroused wide concern. This study investigated the effect and underlying mechanism of PFOA on anaerobic digestion sludge (ADS) dewaterability. Long-term exposure experiments were set up to investigate the effect with various...

The patterns of biogeographic distribution and assembly processes of microbiota are of vital importance for understanding ecological adaptation and functioning maintenance. However, the role of morphological characteristics in microbial assembly is still poorly ascertained. Here, by integrating high-throughput sequencing and robust extrapolation of...

Harmful cyanobacterial blooms occur worldwide and pose a great threat to aquatic ecosystems and public health. The application of algicidal bacteria represents an eco-friendly strategy for controlling harmful cyanobacterial blooms; thus, searching for a high efficiency of algicidal bacteria has been becoming an important and continuous task in scie...

Cartusia hunanesis sp. nov. was isolated from a stream in China, and two strains (ZJJ02 and ZJJ03) of which were inquired using morphological features, ecological evidence, and molecular data consisting of the 16S rRNA gene and 16S–23S rRNA intergenic transcribed spacer (ITS) region. Cartusia hunanesis varies from the type species Cartusia fontana...

The benthic gastropods Bellamya aeruginosa (B. aeruginosa) is ubiquitous in freshwater in China and neighboring countries with great edible value. It has been recognized as a potential manipulator to control harmful algal blooms due to its filtration on algal cells. In this study, the control effect of B. aeruginosa on toxic and non-toxic Microcyst...

Chlorophyll (Chl) f was recently identified in a few cyanobacteria as the fifth chlorophyll of oxygenic organisms. In this study, two Leptolyngbya‐like strains of CCNU0012 and CCNU0013 were isolated from a dry ditch in Chongqing city and a brick wall in Mount Emei Scenic Area in China, respectively. These two strains were described as new species:...

Water blooms caused by the invasive cyanobacterium Raphidiopsis raciborskii occur in many reservoirs in the tropical and subtropical regions of China. In recent decades, this species has spread rapidly to temperate regions. Phenotypic plasticity and climate warming are thought to promote the worldwide dispersion of R. raciborskii. However, investig...

Freshwater lakes across the world have undergone dramatic changes in biological components and water quality over the past several decades. Previous studies focused on potential drivers mainly on nutrient enrichment in the catchment. However, the relative importance of climate change and the top-down cascade effects of fish stocking on water qualit...

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...

For estuaries, inland lakes play a vital role in the ecological balance under the impact of tides. The eff ect of tides-induced water exchange on phytoplankton community in a semi-closed lake was studied and compared with that of an adjacent closed lake in the Oujiang River mouth in Zhejiang, East China Sea, from June 29, 2020 to June 14, 2021. Res...

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...

Microcystis aeruginosa has always been regarded as the main culprit of cyanobacterial blooms in freshwater. However, in recent years, Raphidiopsis raciborskii has gradually replaced M. aeruginosa as the culprit of cyanobacterial blooms in some tropical and subtropical shallow lakes. To reveal which one plays a more dominant role, interactions betwe...

Disentangling the relative contributions of deterministic and stochastic processes was critical to compressive understanding of underlying mechanism governing geographic pattern and assembly of phytoplankton community, while it was seldom performed in connected lakes under human pressure. Here, we investigated phytoplankton community pattern in rel...

The patterns of biogeographical distribution and assembly processes of microbiota are of vital importance for understanding ecological adaptation and functioning maintenance that microorganisms provide. Although the assembly of microbial communities was increasingly inspected, the role of their morphological characteristics is still poorly ascertai...

A cyanobacterial strain (ZJJ01), morphologically identified as a Leptolyngbya-like species was isolated from a freshwater pond in Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, China, and it was characterized through a polyphasic study based on morphological, ecological, and molecular data. Morphologically, the strain fits the description of Leptolyngbya well,...

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...

This study investigated the methane production potential of algal biomass by anerobic digestion with the addition of peroxymonosulfate (PMS), the removal of microcystin were analyzed and discussed. The microcystin concentration in the collected algal sludge was 1.20 μg/L in the liquid phase and 1393 μg/g in the algal sludge before anaerobic ferment...

Mycosporine-like amino acids (MAAs) are widespread in various microbes and protect them against harsh environments. Here, four different Aphanizomenon species were isolated from severely eutrophic waterbodies, Lake Dianchi and the Guanqiao fishpond. Morphological characters and molecular phylogenetic analysis verified that the CHAB5919, 5921, and 5...

A few groups of cyanobacteria have been characterized as having far‐red light photoacclimation (FaRLiP) that results from chlorophyll f (Chl f) production. In this study, using a polyphasic approach, we taxonomically transferred the Cf. Leptolyngbya sp. CCNUW1 isolated from a shaded freshwater pond, which produces Chl f under far‐red light, to the...

Two cyanobacterial strains CHAB5870 and CHAB5871 morphologically identified as Nostoc-like species were isolated from different habitats in China, and they were phylogenetically and taxonomically characterized based on a polyphasic approach combining morphological, ecological, and molecular data. In the 16S rRNA gene phylogeny inferred using maximu...

Two filamentous cyanobacterial strains were isolated from the mats attached to rock surfaces in the Ganfu Channel, Jiangxi Province, China. A polyphasic approach based on the combination of morphological and molecular features was used to characterize the two strains. Both strains showed the Lyngbya-like morphology under the light microscopy, and h...

Disentangling the relative contributions of deterministic and stochastic processes were critical to compressive understanding of underlying mechanism governing geographic pattern and assembly of phytoplankton community, while it was seldom performed in connected lakes under human pressure. Here, we investigated phytoplankton community pattern in re...

Cyanobacterial blooms, which refer to the massive growth of harmful cyanobacteria, have altered the global freshwater ecosystems during the past decades. China has the largest population in the world, and it is suffering from the harmful effect of water eutrophication and cyanobacterial blooms along with rapid development of the economy and society...

Cyanobacterial taxonomic studies performed by using the modern approaches always lead to creation of many new genera and species. During the field survey for cyanobacterial resources in China, a filamentous cyanobacterial strain was successfully isolated from a microbial mat attached to rock surfaces of the Ganfu Channel, Jiangxi Province, China. T...

Endogenously formed coralloid roots in living cycads are known to be infected and maintained by a mutual partnership with photosynthetic cyanobacteria. In this study, two strains of filamentous, nitrogen-fixing endosymbiotic cyanobacteria from the green zone of the coralloid roots of Cycas fairylakea were isolated and grown in culture. The phylogen...

In contrast to obligate bacteria, facultative symbiotic bacteria are mainly characterized by genome enlargement. However, the underlying relationship of this feature with adaptations to various habitats remains unclear. In this study, we used the global genome data of Nostoc strains, including 10 novel genomes sequenced in this study and 26 genomes...

Harmful algal bloom (HAB) is an ecological disaster to local mariculture. At present, its impact on macrophytes has not been well studied. In this study, we cultivated sexually propagated embryos of Sargassum fusiformis— an edible seaweed—in Prorocentrum donghaiense suspensions at different cell densities (0, 0.50×105, 0.75×105, 1.00×105, and 1.50×...

Several coccoid cyanobacterial strains, morphologically similar to typical characteristics of Chroococcus, from the Qinghai‐Tibet Plateau were isolated and characterized using a polyphasic approach including morphological and molecular information. Morphological characteristics, the phylogeny based on 16S rRNA gene, and 16S‐23S internal transcribed...

The macro- and microalgae have been found to inhibit the growth and photosynthesis of one another due to allelopathic interactions between them. Sargassum fusiformis is a common and commercially cultivated seaweed in coastal waters of the East China Sea (ECS) and usually encounters dense harmful algal blooms (HABs) formed by dinoflagellates during...

Aquatic ecosystems and drinking water supply systems worldwide are increasingly affected by taste and odor episodes. In this study, molecular approaches including next-generation sequencing (NGS) and quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) were used to study the diversity and dynamics of cyanobacteria and 2-methylisoborneol (2-MIB)-producing...

Aim: Microbial diversity is one of the most important factors for maintaining the performance of multiple functions in soils (multifunctionality). However, existing studies typically consider the taxonomic richness or Shannon diversity of the entire community. We know little about the connection network of taxonomic and phylogenetic facets of dive...

Twenty water bodies in China were sampled, and 186 strains of different Microcystis species were isolated, from which eight morphospecies were identified and 43 stains containing the mcyB gene were detected. Phylogenetic analysis based on the mcyB gene indicated that the microcystin (MC)-producing Microcystis in China could be divided into two grou...

The cyanotoxin cylindrospermopsin (CYN), a toxic metabolite from cyanobacteria, is of particular concern due to its cosmopolitan occurrence, aquatic bioaccumulation, and multi-organ toxicity. CYN is the second most often recorded cyanotoxin worldwide, and cases of human morbidity and animal mortality are associated with ingestion of CYN contaminate...

Raphidiopsis raciborskii is a diazotrophic and potentially toxic cyanobacterium. To date, this species has successfully invaded many regions from the tropics to sub-tropical and temperate regions, typically forming blooms at temperatures greater than 25 °C. However, there have been a few cases in which R. raciborskii blooms have occurred at low tem...

The dynamics of planktonic cyanobacteria in eutrophicated freshwaters play an important role in formation of annual summer blooms, yet overwinter-ing mechanisms of these water bloom forming cyanobacteria remain unknown. The responses to darkness and low temperature of three strains (uni-cellular Microcystis aeruginosa FACHB-905, colonial M. aerugin...

Fifty-three strains of the genus Aphanizomenon isolated from Chinese waters were employed to conduct morphological examination and sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene, rbcLX (RUBISCO), and cpcBA-IGS gene regions. Based on morphological characteristics , the examined strains were divided into three morphotypes [Aph. flos-aquae Bréb. ex Bornet et Flahaul...

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....

As a successful invasive cyanobacterial species, Raphidiopsis raciborskii is distributed globally and shows a tendency to replace Microcystis aeruginosa in many subtropical and temperate waters, but the ecological traits that contribute to its invasiveness are still unclear. In this study, we found that R. raciborskii occurred in 149 sites in 42 la...

The potential of biodiversity loss to impair the delivery of ecosystem services has motived ecologists to better understand the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Although increasing evidence underlines the collective contribution of different biodiversity components on the simultaneous performance of multiple functions (m...

In recent years, Cylindrospermopsis raciborskii blooms have been widely found worldwide. Topics dealing with the mitigation of C. raciborskii bloom is of great importance for toxins produced could threaten public health. The paper first investigated C. raciborskii dynamics over three years following sediment dredging in a shallow eutrophic Lake Don...

Cylindrospermopsis and Raphidiopsis (C/R group) are closely related species responsible for cyanobacterial blooms worldwide. Paralytic shellfish toxins (PSTs) and cylindrospermopsins (CYNs) have been identified in different C/R group strains. However, the evolutionary relationship between PST- and CYN-producing strains has not been systematically e...

What kinds of single indicators are appropriate, when we calculate multifunctionality?

s Microbial diversity is one of the most important drivers on ecosystem to maintain the simultaneous performance of functions (multifunctionality, MF) under climatic oscillation. However, existing studies typically consider taxonomic richness or Shannon index at the community level in which relations between diversity and functioning are not highly...

Supplementary information

A new terrestrial coccoid cyanobacterial strain was isolated in depression of a rough concrete surface in village Zengkeng, Fujian Province, China. This strain, named CHAB 6571, was characterized by a polyphasic approach. The strain exhibited morphological similarity to the Aliterlella species but differed in its larger cell sizes and irregular arr...

Sanguinarine has strong inhibitory effects against the cyanobacterium Microcystis aeruginosa. However, previous studies were mainly limited to laboratory tests. The efficacy of sanguinarine for mitigation of cyanobacterial blooms under field conditions, and its effects on aquatic microbial community structure remain unknown. To elucidate these issu...

The sesquiterpene geosmin, mainly originating from cyanobacteria, is considered one of the problematic odor compounds responsible for unpleasant-tasting and -smelling water episodes in freshwater supplies. The biochemistry and genetics of geosmin synthesis in cyanobacteria is well-elucidated and the geosmin synthase gene (geo) has been cloned and c...

Polyphasic taxonomic studies have been extensively carried out in cyanobacteria, resulting in the description of numerous cyanobacterial genera and species. The present study described a new cyanobacterial genus Compactonostoc gen. nov. based on a combination of morphological, genetic, and ecological evidence. The new genus was collected from a wet...

Modern molecular biological technology has provided much information and evidence for cyanobacterial diversity. Unicellular cyanobacterial genus Geminocystis was established in 2009 by separating from Synechocystis. In this study, a cyanobacterial strain was isolated in May 2017 from Lake Yueya-a small and enclosed lake close to the Lake Qinghai. T...

A new coccoid cyanobacterial species Aliterella shaanxiensis sp. nov. is described from a freshwater inland lake in Shaanxi Province, China. The new Aliterella species is defined by using a polyphasic approach that combines morphological, ultrastructural and ecological characteristics, as well as genetic analyses. It is morphologically similar to A...