Are Microbial Consortia Superior? A Systematic Quantitative Assessment of Biological Traits and Multi-Pollutant...

Selecting between axenic strains and microbial consortia remains a key challenge in microbial remediation. Here, we established a systematic quantitative framework to compare their degradation performance and biological traits across six pollutant classes: petroleum hydrocarbons, antibiotics, pesticides, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), heavy metals, and plastics, under comparable experimental contexts. For complex substrates requiring sequential transformation and mineralisation, especially petroleum hydrocarbons and PAHs, microbial consortia generally showed higher degradation efficiency through metabolic division of labour, biofilm enrichment, and functional redundancy. Reported efficiency improvements ranged from approximately 17% to 73%, with selected cases reaching up to 200%. In contrast, for certain antibiotics and pesticides, consortium performance was inconsistent and sometimes inferior to acclimated or engineered axenic strains due to interspecific antagonism, metabolic inhibition, or unstable functional coordination. Based on the assembled evidence, we propose a decision-making framework for remediation strategy selection: microbial consortia are preferable for complex, multi-step substrates, whereas axenic strains are more suitable for highly toxic contaminants or scenarios requiring strong operational controllability. This study provides quantitative evidence and practical guidance for rational microbial strategy selection, system design, and scale-up in bioremediation engineering.