Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Bacterial community composition of a wastewater treatment system reliant on N2 fixation

  • Environmental Biotechnology
  • Published:
Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

    We’re sorry, something doesn't seem to be working properly.

    Please try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, please contact support so we can address the problem.

Abstract

The temporal stability and change of the dominant phylogenetic groups of the domain bacteria were studied in a model plant-based industrial wastewater treatment system showing high levels of organic carbon removal supported by high levels of N2 fixation. Community profiles were obtained through terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis and cloning of 16S rRNA amplicons followed by sequencing. Bacterial community profiles showed that ten common terminal restriction fragments made up approximately 50% of the measured bacterial community. As much as 42% of the measured bacterial community could be monitored by using quantitative PCR and primers that targeted three dominant operational taxonomic units. Despite changes in wastewater composition and dissolved oxygen levels, the bacterial community composition appeared stable and was dominated by α-Proteobacteria and β-Proteobacteria, with a lesser amount of the highly diverse bacterial phylum Bacteroidetes. A short period of considerable change in the bacterial community composition did not appear to affect treatment performance indicating functional redundancy in this treatment system.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Bruce ME, Clark TA (1994) Klebsiella and nitrogen fixation in pulp and paper mill effluents and treatment systems. Appita J 47:231–237

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Clark TA, Dare PH, Bruce MA (1997) Nitrogen fixation in an aerated stabilisation basin treating bleached kraft mill wastewater. Water Environ Res 69:1039–1046

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Dennis MA, Cotter ML, Slade AH, Gapes DJ (2004) The performance of a nitrogen-fixing SBR. Water Sci Technol 50:269–278

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Dunbar J, Ticknor LO, Kuske CR (2001) Phylogenetic specificity and reproducibility and new method for analysis of terminal restriction fragment profiles of 16S rRNA genes from bacterial communities. Appl Environ Microbiol 67:190–197

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • FAO (2007) State of the world’s forests. Rome

  • Felsenstein J (1989) PHYLIP—phylogeny inference package (version 3.2). Cladistics 5:164–166

    Google Scholar 

  • Gapes DJ, Frost NM, Clark TA, Dare PH, Hunter RG, Slade AH (1999) Nitrogen fixation in the treatment of pulp and paper wastewaters. Water Sci Technol 40:85–92

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Gapes DJ, Clark TA, Frost NM, Slade AH (2003) Wastewater treatment process for nitrogen-deficient feed in controlled environments. US Patent 6,623,641

  • Gauthier F, Neufeld JD, Driscoll BT, Archibald FS (2000) Coliform bacteria and nitrogen fixation in pulp and paper mill effluent treatment systems. Appl Environ Microbiol 66:5155–5160

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Gentile M, Yan T, Tiquia SM, Fields MW, Nyman J, Zhou J, Criddle CS (2006) Stability in a denitrifying fluidized bed reactor. Microb Ecol 52:311–321

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Gentile ME, Jessup CM, Nyman JL, Criddle CS (2007) Correlation of functional instability and community dynamics in denitrifying dispersed-growth reactors. Appl Environ Microbiol 73:680–690

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Gilbride KA, Fulthorpe RR (2004) A survey of the composition and diversity of bacterial populations in bleached kraft pulp-mill wastewater secondary treatment systems. Can J Microbiol 50:633–644

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Gilbride KA, Frigon D, Cesnik A, Gawat J, Fulthorpe RR (2006) Effect of chemical and physical parameters on a pulp mill biotreatment bacterial community. Water Res 40:775–787

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Hardy RWF, Eaglesham A, Shelton A (2007) Agriculture & forestry for energy, chemicals, & materials; the road forward. Ind Biotechnol 3:133–137

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kaewpipat K, Grady CP Jr (2002) Microbial population dynamics in laboratory-scale activated sludge reactors. Water Sci Technol 46:19–27

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Kargi F, Özmıhçı S (2002) Improved biological treatment of nitrogen-deficient wastewater by incorporation of N2-fixing bacteria. Biotechnol Lett 24:1281–1284

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Kämpfer P, Erhart R, Beimfohr C, Böhringer J, Wagner M, Amann R (1996) Characterization of bacterial communities from activated sludge: culture-dependent numerical identification versus in situ identification using group-and genus-specific rRNA-targeted oligonucleotide probes. Microb Ecol 32:101–121

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Knowles R, Neufield R, Simpson S (1974) Acetylene reduction (nitrogen fixation) by pulp and paper mill effluents and by Klebsiella isolated from effluents and environmental situations. J Appl Microbiol 28:608–613

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Lane DJ (1991) 16S/23S rRNA sequencing. In: Stackebrandt E, Goodfellow M (eds) Nucleic acid techniques in bacterial systematics. Wiley, New York, pp 115–175

    Google Scholar 

  • LaPara TM, Nakatsu CH, Pantea LM, Alleman JE (2002) Stability of the bacterial communities supported by a seven-stage biological process treating pharmaceutical wastewater as revealed by PCR-DGGE. Water Res 36:638–646

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Malmqvist Å, Welander T, Moore E, Ternström A, Molin G, Stenström I-M (1994) Ideonella dechloratans gen. nov. sp. nov., a new bacterium capable of growing anaerobically with chlorate as an electron acceptor. Syst Appl Microbiol 17:58–64

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • O’Sullivan LA, Rinna J, Humphreys G, Weightman AJ, Fry JC (2006) Culturable phylogenetic diversity of the phylum ‘Bacteroidetes’ from river epilithon and coastal water and description of novel members of the family Flavobacteriaceae: Epiithonimonas tenax gen. nov., sp. nov. and Persicivirga xylanidelens gen. nov., sp. nov. Int J Syst Evol Microbiol 56:169–180

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Park J-W, Crowley DE (2005) Normalization of soil DNA extraction for accurate quantification of target genes by real-time PCR and DGGE. BioTechniques 38:579–585

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Pfaffl MW (2001) A new mathematical model for relative quantification in real-time RT-PCR. Nucl Acids Res 29:e45

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Pokhrel D, Viraraghavan T (2004) Treatment of pulp and paper mill wastewater—a review. Sci Total Environ 333:37–58

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Pratt S, Tan M, Gapes D, Shilton A (2007) Development and examination of a granular nitrogen-fixing wastewater treatment system. Process Biochem 42:863–872

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Röling WFM, Milner MG, Jones DM, Lee K, Daniel F, Swannell RJP, Head IM (2002) Robust hydrocarbon degradation and dynamics of bacterial communities during nutrient-enhanced oil spill bioremediation. Appl Environ Microbiol 68:5537–5548

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schmitt-Wagner D, Friedrich MW, Wagner B, Brune A (2003) Axial dynamics, stability, and interspecies similarity of bacterial community structure in the highly compartmentalized gut of soil-feeding termites (Cubitermes spp). Appl Environ Microbiol 69:6018–6024

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Schwarz JIK, Eckert W, Conrad R (2007) Community structure of Archaea and Bacteria in a profundal lake sediment Lake Kinneret (Israel). Syst Appl Microbiol 30:239–254

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Slade AH, Anderson SM, Evans BE (2003) Nitrogen fixation in the activated sludge treatment of thermomechanical pulping wastewater: effect of dissolved oxygen. Water Sci Technol 48:1–8

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Smith NR, Yu Z, Mohn WW (2003) Stability of the bacterial community in a pulp mill effluent treatment system during normal operation and a system shutdown. Water Res 37:4873–4884

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Soetaert W, Vandamme E (2006) The impact of industrial biotechnology. Biotechnol J 1:756–769

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Thompson JD, Gibson TJ, Plewniak F, Jeanmougin F, Higgins DG (1997) The CLUSTAL_X windows interface: flexible strategies for multiple sequence alignment aided by quality analysis tools. Nucl Acids Res 25:4876–4882

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Wagner M, Loy A (2002) Bacterial community composition and function in sewage treatment systems. Curr Opin Biotech 13:218–227

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Yu Z, Mohn WW (2001) Bacterial diversity and community structure in an aerated lagoon revealed by ribosomal intergenic spacer analyses and 16S ribosomal DNA sequencing. Appl Environ Microbiol 67:1565–1574

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Zhou J, Bruns MA, Tiedje JM (1996) DNA recovery from soils of diverse composition. Appl Environ Microbiol 62:316–322

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgement

This research was supported by the New Zealand Foundation for Research Science and Technology.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Scion, Private Bag 3020, Rotorua Mail Centre, Rotorua, 3046, New Zealand

    Nicola M. Reid, Tracey H. Bowers & Gareth Lloyd-Jones

Authors
  1. Nicola M. Reid
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Tracey H. Bowers
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Gareth Lloyd-Jones
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nicola M. Reid.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Reid, N.M., Bowers, T.H. & Lloyd-Jones, G. Bacterial community composition of a wastewater treatment system reliant on N2 fixation. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 79, 285–292 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-008-1413-6

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-008-1413-6

Keywords

Search

Navigation