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Ignored fungal community in activated sludge wastewater treatment plants: diversity and altitudinal characteristics

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Abstract

Fungi are important contributors to the various functions of activated sludge wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs); however, the diversity and geographic characteristics of fungal populations have remained vastly unexplored. Here, quantitative polymerase chain reaction and 454 pyrosequencing were combined to investigate the abundance and diversity of the activated sludge fungal communities from 18 full-scale municipal WWTPs in China. Phylogenetic taxonomy revealed that the members of the fungal communities were assigned to 7 phyla and 195 genera. Ascomycota and Basidiomycota were the most abundant phyla, dominated by Pluteus, Wickerhamiella, and Penicillium. Twenty-three fungal genera, accounting for 50.1 % of the total reads, were shared by 18 WWTPs and constituted a core fungal community. The fungal communities presented similar community diversity but different community structures across the WWTPs. Significant distance decay relationships were observed for the dissimilarity in fungal community structure and altitudinal distance between WWTPs. Additionally, the community evenness increased from 0.25 to 0.7 as the altitude increased. Dissolved oxygen and the C/N ratio were determined to be the most dominant contributors to the variation in fungal community structure via redundancy analysis. The observed data demonstrated the diverse occurrence of fungal species and gave a marked view of fungal community characteristics based on the previously unexplored fungal communities in activated sludge WWTPs.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (nos. 51322901, 91547105, and 51568059), the Foundation for Innovative Research Groups of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51421006), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2016B10614), PAPD, and TAPP.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Integrated Regulation and Resource Development on Shallow Lakes, College of Environment, Hohai University, Nanjing, 210098, People’s Republic of China

    Lihua Niu, Yi Li, Peifang Wang, Wenlong Zhang, Chao Wang, Wei Cai & Linqiong Wang

  2. Jiangsu Province Water Engineering Sci-tech Consulting Company Limited, Nanjing, 210029, China

    Lingling Xu

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  1. Lihua Niu
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  2. Yi Li
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  4. Peifang Wang
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  5. Wenlong Zhang
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  6. Chao Wang
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  7. Wei Cai
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  8. Linqiong Wang
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Correspondence to Yi Li.

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Niu, L., Li, Y., Xu, L. et al. Ignored fungal community in activated sludge wastewater treatment plants: diversity and altitudinal characteristics. Environ Sci Pollut Res 24, 4185–4193 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-016-8137-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-016-8137-4

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