Microbial community diversity of activated sludge from municipal wastewater treatment plants in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region

Abstract:

[Background] Bacterial community structure of activated sludge has important impacts on the high efficiency and stability of the biological sewage treatment. [Objective] In order to provide strategies for maintaining stability of sewage disposal process and improving sewage treatment efficiency, we have estimated bacterial community structure and function of activated sludge. [Methods] Illumina MiSeq sequencing and real-time PCR were applied to analyze the bacterial community structure diversity and differences of the activated sludge, which was sampled from five municipal wastewater treatment plants in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. [Results] Sample from Hengshui (HS) demonstrated the highest microbial diversity and occupied the most unique OTUs whereas sample Hejian (HJ) demonstrated the lowest microbial diversity. Influent temperature was the principal factor that differed the sample HS from other samples in community structure. The most dominant families of sample Daoxianghu (DXH), Nangong (NG) and HS were all Anaerolineaceae, whereas the most dominant families or genera of sample Shahe (SH) and HJ were Saprospiraceae and Lactobacillus respectively. Sample HJ demonstrated the highest denitrifier abundance, whereas sample HS demonstrated the lowest denitrifier abundance. Furthermore, nirS gene was the more widely distributed nitrite reductase encoding gene than nirK gene. [Conclusion] The environmental vectors affecting community structure of activity sludge in different municipal wastewater treatment plants were discrepant. And special influent water quality would also have effect on community composition and biodiversity.