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Ammonia-oxidizing archaea have better adaptability in oxygenated/hypoxic alternant conditions compared to ammonia-oxidizing bacteria

  • Applied genetics and molecular biotechnology
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Abstract

Ammonia oxidation is performed by both ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) and ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB). Few studies compared the adaptability of AOA and AOB for oxygenated/hypoxic alternant conditions in water-level-fluctuating zones. Here, using qPCR and 454 high-throughput sequencing of functional amoA genes of AOA and AOB, we examined the changes of abundances, diversities, and community structures of AOA and AOB in periodically flooded soils compared to the non-flooded soils in Three Gorges Reservoir. The increased AOA operational taxonomic unit (OTU) numbers and the higher ratios of abundance (AOA:AOB) in the periodically flooded soils suggested AOA have better adaptability for oxygenated/hypoxic alternant conditions in the water-level-fluctuating zones in the Three Gorges Reservoir and probably responsible for the ammonia oxidation there. Canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) showed that oxidation-reduction potential (ORP) had the most significant effect on the community distribution of AOA (p < 0.01). Pearson analysis also indicated that ORP was the most important factor influencing the abundances and diversities of ammonia-oxidizing microbes. ORP was significantly negatively correlated with AOA OTU numbers (p < 0.05), ratio of OTU numbers (AOA:AOB) (p < 0.01), and ratio of amoA gene abundances (AOA:AOB) (p < 0.05). ORP was also significantly positively correlated with AOB abundance (p < 0.05).

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the National Science Foundation for Young Scientists of China (No. 51108408), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 2015QNA6012), and the Foundation from State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Microorganism Application and Risk Control of Tsinghua University (No. SMARC2013D004).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Compliance with ethical standards

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

    Shuai Liu, Baolan Hu, Zhanfei He, Guangming Tian & Ping Zheng

  2. Faculty of Urban Construction and Environmental Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing, China

    Bin Zhang & Fang Fang

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  1. Shuai Liu
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  2. Baolan Hu
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  3. Zhanfei He
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  4. Bin Zhang
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  5. Guangming Tian
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Correspondence to Baolan Hu or Fang Fang.

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Liu, S., Hu, B., He, Z. et al. Ammonia-oxidizing archaea have better adaptability in oxygenated/hypoxic alternant conditions compared to ammonia-oxidizing bacteria. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 99, 8587–8596 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-015-6750-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-015-6750-7

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