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Metagenomic insights into microbial characterizations in explaining the distinction of biofilter performance during start-up

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Abstract

As an effective alternative for dissolved nitrogen removal, biofilter closely associates its treatment performance to structural and/or operational conditions. In this study, a set of four different biofilters including MAVF (mature aerated vertical flow), NAVF (new aerated vertical flow), NVF (new non-aerated vertical flow), and BHF (baffled non-aerated horizontal flow) were employed to purify low C/N ratio (3.8) domestic wastewater. All the filters were packed with round ceramsite operated under varying hydraulic loading rates (HLRs) of 0.024–0.18 m/day. During the start-up, both the physicochemical and microbial characterizations were investigated. It was found that, carbon and nitrogen could achieve ideal removal in MAVF once added with further sedimentation, while phosphorus displayed an unsatisfactory sequestration in any of the four filters probably due to the high inflow load and/or lack of alternate anaerobic/aerobic conditions. Filter clustering based on percent removal and removal rate constant displayed a consistent pattern, which was similar to that based on taxa of phylum from 16S rRNA sequencing, or phylum/genus/species from shotgun metagenomic sequencing although there were obvious distinctions in taxa compositions among direct comparison. Meanwhile, gene function annotation revealed that filter clustering based on metabolic pathways was consistent with that based on purification performance. These consistencies might imply that the treatment performance was mainly determined by microbial degradation. The enrichment of specific functional microbes responsible for the degradation of certain pollutants, such as carbohydrates, matched well with the defined purification performance.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the Open Research Program from the Agriculture Ministry Key Laboratory of Healthy Freshwater Aquaculture (ZJK201902), the CRSRI Open Research Program (Program SN:CKWV2019765/KY), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (WUT: 2019III107CG), the Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province (2017CFB511) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31202034).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, 430070, China

    Shiyang Zhang

  2. Agriculture Ministry Key Laboratory of Healthy Freshwater Aquaculture, Key Laboratory of Fish Health and Nutrition of Zhejiang Province, Freshwater Fishery Healthy Breeding Laboratory of Ministry of Agriculture, Zhejiang Institute of Freshwater Fisheries, 999 Hangchaoqiao Road, Huzhou, 313001, Zhejiang, China

    Julin Yuan

  3. Key Lab of Basin Water Resource and Eco-Environmental Science in Hubei Province, Changjiang River Scientific Research Institute, Wuhan, 430010, China

    Weijie Guo

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  1. Shiyang Zhang
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Correspondence to Julin Yuan.

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Zhang, S., Yuan, J. & Guo, W. Metagenomic insights into microbial characterizations in explaining the distinction of biofilter performance during start-up. Biodegradation 31, 183–199 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10532-020-09902-1

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