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Quantitative analyses of ammonia-oxidizing Archaea and bacteria in the sediments of four nitrogen-rich wetlands in China

  • Environmental Biotechnology
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Abstract

With the rapid development of ammonia-synthesizing industry, the ammonia-nitrogen pollution in wetlands acting as the sink of point and diffuse pollution has been increased dramatically. Most of ammonia-nitrogen is oxidized at least once by ammonia-oxidizing prokaryotes to complete the nitrogen cycle. Current research findings have expanded the known ammonia-oxidizing prokaryotes from the domain Bacteria to Archaea. However, in the complex wetlands environment, it remains unclear whether ammonia oxidation is exclusively or predominantly linked to Archaea or Bacteria as implied by specific high abundance. In this research, the abundance and composition of Archaea and Bacteria in sediments of four kinds of wetlands with different nitrogen concentration were investigated by using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction, cloning, and sequencing approaches based on amoA genes. The results indicated that AOA distributed widely in wetland sediments, and the phylogenetic tree revealed that archaeal amoA functional gene sequences from wetlands sediments cluster as two major evolutionary branches: soil/sediment and sediment/water. The bacteria functionally dominated microbial ammonia oxidation in different wetlands sediments on the basis of molecule analysis, potential nitrification rate, and soil chemistry. Moreover, the factors influencing AOA and AOB abundances with environmental indicator were also analyzed, and the results addressed the copy numbers of archaeal and bacterial amoA functional gene having the higher correlation with pH and ammonia concentration. The pH had relatively great negative impact on the abundance of AOA and AOB, while ammonia concentration showed positive impact on AOB abundance only. These findings could be fundamental to improve understanding of the importance of AOB and AOA in nitrogen and other nutrients cycle in wetland ecosystems.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Profs. Junxin Liu, He Jizheng and Weidong Wang for their kind help; Xiangchong Liu are gratefully acknowledged for his detailed and patient favor in correlation analysis. This research is financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (20877086 and 21077119), National Basic Research Program of China (No.2009CB421103), and National Water Project (2008ZX07209-006-02; 2008ZX07421-001; 2009ZX07209-005).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Environmental Aquatic Quality, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100085, China

    Shanyun Wang, Yu Wang, Xiaojuan Feng & Guibing Zhu

  2. University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, 100083, China

    Shanyun Wang

  3. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong

    Liming Zhai

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  1. Shanyun Wang
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  2. Yu Wang
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  4. Liming Zhai
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  5. Guibing Zhu
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Correspondence to Guibing Zhu.

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Wang, S., Wang, Y., Feng, X. et al. Quantitative analyses of ammonia-oxidizing Archaea and bacteria in the sediments of four nitrogen-rich wetlands in China. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 90, 779–787 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-011-3090-0

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