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Linkages of Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes populations to methanogenic process performance

  • Environmental Microbiology
  • Published:
Journal of Industrial Microbiology & Biotechnology

Abstract

To identify potential linkages between specific bacterial populations and process performance in anaerobic digestion, the dynamics of bacterial community structure was monitored with high-throughput sequencing in triplicate anaerobic digesters treating animal waste. Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes were found as the two most abundant populations, however, with contrasting population dynamics in response to organic overloading. Firmicutes dominated the bacterial community during stable process performance at low organic loading rate, representing over 50 % of the bacterial abundance. In contrast, the onset of organic overloading raised the relative abundance of Bacteroidetes from 20 ± 2.6 to 44 ± 3.1 %. In addition to the significant negative correlation between the relative abundance of Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes, populations of Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes were found to be linked to process parameters including organic loading rate, volatile fatty acids concentration, and methane production. Therefore, the population abundance ratio of Firmicutes to Bacteroidetes (F/B ratio) was suggested as a potential indicator for process performance. The interactions between Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes populations could be exploited to develop strategies for the prevention of performance perturbation in anaerobic digestion processes.

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Acknowledgments

This work was partly supported by a US Environmental Protection Agency Grant XA-83539201 and the Science Alliance—Tennessee Center of Excellence. SC was partly supported by the Institute for a Secure and Sustainable Environment at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, 37996, USA

    Si Chen, Kristen N. Wyckoff & Qiang He

  2. Institute for a Secure and Sustainable Environment, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA

    Qiang He

  3. Biology Institute, Hebei Academy of Sciences, Shijiazhuang, Hebei, China

    Huicai Cheng

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  1. Si Chen
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  2. Huicai Cheng
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  3. Kristen N. Wyckoff
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  4. Qiang He
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Correspondence to Qiang He.

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Chen, S., Cheng, H., Wyckoff, K.N. et al. Linkages of Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes populations to methanogenic process performance. J Ind Microbiol Biotechnol 43, 771–781 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10295-016-1760-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10295-016-1760-8

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