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Correlating microbial community compositions with environmental factors in activated sludge from four full-scale municipal wastewater treatment plants in Shanghai, China

  • Environmental biotechnology
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Abstract

Activated sludge system is an important process of domestic and industrial wastewater treatment containing highly diverse microbial communities. In this study, high-throughput sequencing was applied to examine the microbial community composition and diversity of activated sludge samples from four full-scale municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in Shanghai. A relationship between microbial communities and environmental variables was examined. Proteobacteria was the most dominant phylogenetic group, followed by Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes. A total of 166 genera were commonly shared by all seven sludge samples, including Zoogloea, Dechloromonas, Thauera, Nitrospira, Arcobacter, etc. Besides these shared populations, certain unique bacterial populations were found abundant in individual sludge sample. Canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) indicated that influent COD and pH had the greatest influence on microbial community compositions, whereas dissolved oxygen (DO) exhibited the least influence. The operating process was likely to foster diversity of the microbial communities inhabiting the wastewater treatment facilities. Alternative operation methods including a fluctuation of anoxic, oxic, and anaerobic conditions were favorable for promoting the growth of diverse microbial populations in activated sludge systems.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Environmental Science and Engineering, State Environmental Protection Engineering Center for Pollution Treatment and Control in Textile Industry, Donghua University, 2999 North Renmin Road, Songjiang District, Shanghai, 201620, China

    Pin Gao, Wenli Xu, Xiang Li & Gang Xue

  2. Department of Environmental Sciences, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ, 08901, USA

    Philip Sontag

  3. Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ, 08901, USA

    Tong Liu & Weimin Sun

Authors
  1. Pin Gao
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  2. Wenli Xu
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  3. Philip Sontag
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  4. Xiang Li
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  5. Gang Xue
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  6. Tong Liu
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  7. Weimin Sun
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Correspondence to Pin Gao or Weimin Sun.

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Funding

This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51178093, 51208086), the Shanghai Pujiang Program (13PJ1400100), the DHU Distinguished Young Professor Program, and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.

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Gao, P., Xu, W., Sontag, P. et al. Correlating microbial community compositions with environmental factors in activated sludge from four full-scale municipal wastewater treatment plants in Shanghai, China. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 100, 4663–4673 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-016-7307-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-016-7307-0

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