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Assembly and Tracking of Microbial Community Development within a Microwell Array Platform
Published on: June 6, 2017
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Microbial Communities in Full-Scale Wastewater Treatment Systems Exhibit Deterministic Assembly Processes and
Jinjin Yu1, Siang Nee Tang2, Patrick K H Lee1,3
1School of Energy and Environment, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
Environmental Science & Technology
|March 30, 2021
Summary
Microbial communities in wastewater treatment are driven by influent composition and deterministic processes. Temporal analysis reveals functional dependency, but system issues like sludge bulking can disrupt microbial assembly and diversity.
Area of Science:
- Environmental microbiology
- Wastewater treatment technologies
- Molecular ecology
Background:
- Microbial communities are essential for biological wastewater treatment.
- Understanding microbial community assembly and functional traits over time is crucial but not well-understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate microbial community assembly mechanisms and functional traits over time in activated sludge and anaerobic digestion systems.
- To determine the drivers of microbial community composition and dynamics.
- To explore the relationship between microbial community assembly and system performance.
Main Methods:
- Meta-analysis of 16S rRNA gene sequencing data from temporal samples.
- Analysis of diverse full-scale activated sludge and anaerobic digestion systems.
- Correlation analysis between temporal community dynamics and functional composition.
Main Results:
- Influent composition is the primary driver of microbial community structure.
- Deterministic processes, particularly homogeneous selection, dominate microbial assembly (>53.8%).
- Strong correlations exist between temporal community dynamics and functional composition, indicating functional dependency.
- Sludge bulking and foaming induce stochastic assembly, reduce diversity, and alter network structure.
Conclusions:
- Microbial community assembly mechanisms and functional traits over time can diagnose wastewater treatment system performance.
- System malfunctions like sludge bulking are linked to shifts in microbial assembly and reduced diversity.
- This study provides insights into maintaining optimal performance in biological wastewater treatment systems.
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