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Response of bacterial communities and function to dissolved organic matters in groundwater contaminated by landfill leachate

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Abstract

The migration and transformation of dissolved organic matter (DOM) caused by landfill leachate leakage affected the phylogenetic development of bacterial communities in groundwater around the landfill. Previous studies mainly focused on the hydrochemical properties of DOM in groundwater contaminated by landfill leachate and the relationships between groundwater quality parameters and bacterial communities. However, the changes in DOM components and bacterial communities caused by landfill leachate leakage and their correlations remained unclear. In this work, we analyzed the evolution characteristics of DOM and identified the bacterial communities and their corresponding functions in groundwater around the landfill. The results showed that DOM content in groundwater increased after the diffusion of landfill leachate to groundwater. Significant differences in characteristics between DOM components were presented at different locations in the landfill leachate plume due to the physical dilution and bacterial degradation of DOM. One of the obvious manifestations was the tendency of humic acid-like substances to accumulate at downstream points. Samples from the contaminated aquifer had higher diversity and abundance of bacterial communities than those in the uncontaminated aquifer. Anaerobic or facultative anaerobic bacteria played predominant roles in contaminated groundwater, due to the input of organic matter, nitrate, and ammonia nitrogen. Redundancy analysis indicated that the content of fulvic acid-like DOM had a conspicuous impact on the composition of bacterial communities in the polluted groundwater. Vogesella were the dominant bacteria at the genus level in groundwater around the landfill. Furthermore, Vogesella were significant for microbial utilization and played an important role in the production of fulvic acid-like DOM. These results indicated that landfill leachate pollution posed a potential threat to the structure and function of bacterial communities in groundwater, and provided a basis for exploring the interaction between DOM composition and bacterial communities in groundwater plume contaminated by landfill leachate.

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Funding

This work was supported by the Central Level, Scientific Research Institutes for Basic R&D Special Fund Business (grant no. 2020YSKY-006), National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 42030704), and Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation, China (grant no. 2020CXGC011403).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Simulation and Control of Groundwater Pollution, Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, Beijing, 100012, China

    Yu Xiao, Jun Tang, Yang Wang, Beidou Xi, Wenbing Tan & Ying Yuan

  2. College of Energy and Environment, Shenbei New District, Shenyang Aerospace University, No. 37 Daoyi Southstreet, Shenyang, 110122, China

    Yu Xiao & Beidou Xi

  3. Global Environmental Studies, Sophia University, 7-1 Kioi-Cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, 102-8554, Japan

    Fei Fang

  4. Beijing Guozhong Biotechnology Co., Ltd, Beijing, 102211, China

    Yue He

  5. International Education College, Beijing Vocational College of Agriculture, Beijing, 102442, China

    Tingqiao Yu

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  1. Yu Xiao
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Contributions

Yu Xiao: conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, and writing—original draft; Fei Fang: data curation and writing—original draft preparation; Jun Tang: data curation and writing—original draft preparation; Yang Wang: software; Yue He: investigation; Beidou Xi: writing—reviewing and editing; Wenbing Tan: visualization, investigation, and writing—reviewing and editing; Ying Yuan: methodology, writing—review and editing, supervision, project administration, and funding acquisition; Tingqiao Yu: visualization, and writing—reviewing.

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Correspondence to Ying Yuan.

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Xiao, Y., Fang, F., Tang, J. et al. Response of bacterial communities and function to dissolved organic matters in groundwater contaminated by landfill leachate. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 12428–12440 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-22841-z

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