Nutrient removal and bacterial communities in swine wastewater lagoon and constructed wetlands

Surface constructed wetlands, including marsh-pond-marsh (MPM) and continuous marsh (CtM) were used to treat swine wastewater in this study. The objectives of this research were to evaluate the surface constructed wetland effects on swine wastewater treatment, and to investigate bacterial distribution shifts along treatment flows. Water quality parameters and bacterial community diversity were analyzed in each section of the entire wastewater treatment system, which was from the anaerobic lagoons (La1 and La2), through the wetlands, to the storage lagoon (La3) receiving wetland effluent. The results of water quality parameters demonstrated that the concentration of TKN, NH4+, o-PO4(3-), and COD decreased significantly (P<0.05) from La1 to La3. If ammonia volatilization is integrated for N removal in MPM wetland cell, then there was no difference between MPM and CtM cells. The total bacterial community in each section of the system was examined by using PCR-DGGE (polymerase chain reaction-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis) technique. Our finding disclosed that the bacterial communities in different sections of the wastewater treatment system showed high diversities. The bacterial community compositions shifted gradually with the wastewater treatment procedure. Principal component analysis (PCA) and redundancy analysis (RDA) confirmed that the bacterium species distribution was strongly related to the COD, o-PO4(3-), and TKN concentrations, whereas moderately related to the NH4+ concentration. Flavobacterium sp. and Methylomonas sp. were detected according to partial 16S rRNA gene sequences.