Long-Term Photochemical and Microbial Alterations Lead to the Compositional Convergence of Algal and Terrestrial Dissolved Organic Matter

Lakes are expected to become more active in processing dissolved organic matter (DOM), but the fate of DOM with different origins remains poorly constrained. We conducted long-term incubation experiments (similar to 1 year) with sole light, sole microbial, and combined light and microbial treatments using DOM from algal and terrestrial sources (DOMa and DOMt, respectively). Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry and 16s rRNA were used to analyze the DOM molecular composition and bacterial community, respectively. We observed that DOMa and DOMt converged toward a similar composition under the combined light and microbial treatment, driven by the removal of source-specific compositions along with the production of refractory, carboxylic-rich alicyclic molecules (CRAM). For CRAM enrichment, microbial processes played a greater role for DOMa, while phototransformation was more important for DOMt. The co-occurrence patterns between DOM molecules and bacteria showed that DOM molecular composition influenced the bacterial community. More complex DOM-bacteria interactions were observed for DOMt compared to DOMa, suggesting that greater bacterial cooperation was necessary for transforming DOMt. Collectively, these findings offer new insights into the mechanisms underlying the uniformity of DOM from various sources through prolonged environmental transformations in lakes.