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Seasonal dynamics of ammonia-oxidizing microorganisms in freshwater aquaculture ponds

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Abstract

An annual investigation into the abundance of ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) and ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) in fresh water aquaculture ponds was performed by quantitative PCR of the amoA gene. The results showed that AOB were the main ammonia-oxidizing microorganisms in water, and significantly higher copy numbers of the AOB amoA gene were observed in the summer (Aug 2012), while no significant differences were detected among the other three seasons. AOA showed low abundances throughout the year. The predominance of AOB in aquaculture water was suggested to be related to photoinhibition. Both the AOB and AOA amoA genes in aquaculture pond sediments showed typical seasonal patterns. The maximum density of AOB was observed in the autumn (Nov 2012) and winter (Jan 2013), while the maximum density of AOA was observed in winter. The minimum densities of both AOA and AOB occurred in the summer. The concentration of the AOA amoA gene was higher than that of the AOB amoA gene in sediments by almost one order of magnitude, which indicates that AOA are the dominant ammonia-oxidizing microorganisms in the aquaculture pond sediments. Dissolved oxygen is suggested to be the key factor determining the predominance of AOA in pond sediments.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported financially by the Special Fund for National Technology System for Conventional Freshwater Industries (No. nycytx-49-09), Agro-scientific Research in the Public Interest Project (No. 201203083), and National Key Technology R&D Program (2012BAD25B01). We also thank Prof. Liu Zuo-xiong for reading the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Fisheries, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, 430070, China

    Shimin Lu, Mingjun Liao, Congxin Xie, Xugang He, Dapeng Li, Lulu He & Jin Chen

  2. College of Resource and Environmental Engineering, Hubei University of Technology, Wuhan, 430068, China

    Mingjun Liao

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  1. Shimin Lu
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  2. Mingjun Liao
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  3. Congxin Xie
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  4. Xugang He
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  5. Dapeng Li
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  6. Lulu He
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  7. Jin Chen
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Correspondence to Congxin Xie.

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Shimin Lu and Mingjun Liao contributed equally to this work.

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Lu, S., Liao, M., Xie, C. et al. Seasonal dynamics of ammonia-oxidizing microorganisms in freshwater aquaculture ponds. Ann Microbiol 65, 651–657 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13213-014-0903-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13213-014-0903-2

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