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

  • Microbiology of Aquatic Systems
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Abstract

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.

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Funding

This work was carried out with the financial support from National Natural Science Foundation of China (41877477), Shanghai Science and Technology Development Funds (18DZ1203806), and National Science and Technology Major Project for Water Pollution Control and Treatment (2017ZX07207001, 2018ZX07208008)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shanghai Key Lab for Urban Ecological Processes and Eco-Restoration, Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Biotransformation of Organic Solid Waste, School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences, Institute of Eco-Chongming, Technology Innovation Center for Land Spatial Eco-restoration in Metropolitan Area, Ministry of Natural Resources, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200241, China

    Yan He, Yunchang Zhou, Rui Weng, Jianhua Wang, Jinghan Chen & Minsheng Huang

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  1. Yan He
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  2. Yunchang Zhou
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  3. Rui Weng
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  4. Jianhua Wang
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  6. Minsheng Huang
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Contributions

Yan He was responsible for the design, data analysis, and writing—review and editing. Yunchang Zhou performed statistical analyses and assessed the contribution of ammonia oxidation. Rui Weng performed statistical analyses and interpretation of microbial community. Jianhua Wang performed experiments of simulated river systems and processed the raw data. Jinghan Chen performed the analysis of microbial community. Minsheng Huang participated in the design of the study.

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Correspondence to Yan He.

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He, Y., Zhou, Y., Weng, R. et al. Responses of Ammonia-Oxidizing Archaea and Bacteria in Malodorous River Sediments to Different Remediation Techniques. Microb Ecol 81, 314–322 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-020-01597-4

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