Responses of Ammonia-Oxidizing Archaea and Bacteria in Malodorous River Sediments to Different Remediation Techniques

In this study, the joint use of high throughput sequencing, real-time quantitative PCR, and ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB)-inhibiting allylthiourea was used to differentiate between the contributions of ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) vs AOB to ammonia oxidation and ascertain how AOA and AOB responded to two widely used river remediation techniques (aeration and Ca(NO₃)₂ injection). Results showed that ammonia oxidation was largely attributed to ATU-sensitive AOB rather than AOA and Nitrosomonas was the predominant AOB-related genus (53.86%) in the malodorous river. The contribution of AOB to ammonia oxidation in the context of aeration and Ca(NO₃)₂ injection was 75.51 ± 2.77% and 60.19 ± 10.44%, respectively. The peak of AOB/AOA ratio and the marked increase of relative abundances of Nitrosomonas and Nitrosospira in aeration runs further demonstrated aeration favored the ammonia oxidation of AOB. Comparatively, Ca(NO₃)₂ injection could increase the ammonia oxidation contribution of AOA from 31.32 ± 6.06 to 39.81 ± 10.44% and was significantly correlated with Nitrosococcus of AOB (r = 0.796, p < 0.05), Candidatus_Nitrosopelagicus of AOA (r = 0.986, p < 0.01), and AOA Simpson diversity (r = - 0.791, p < 0.05). Moreover, Candidatus_Nitrosopelagicus was only present in Ca(NO₃)₂ runs. Taken together, Ca(NO₃)₂ was recognized as an important factor in mediating the growth and ecological niches of ammonia oxidizers.Graphical abstract.