Importance of Species Sorting and Immigration on the Bacterial Assembly of Different-Sized Aggregates in a Full-Scale Aerobic Granular Sludge Plant
Type
ArticleAuthors
Ali, MuhammadWang, Zhongwei

Salam, Khaled W.
Rao, Hari Ananda

Pronk, Mario
van Loosdrecht, Mark C. M.
Saikaly, Pascal

KAUST Department
Biological and Environmental Sciences and Engineering (BESE) DivisionEnvironmental Science and Engineering
Environmental Science and Engineering Program
Water Desalination & Reuse Center
Water Desalination and Reuse Research Center (WDRC)
KAUST Grant Number
FCC/1/ 1971-05-01Date
2019-06-13Embargo End Date
2020-06-13Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/655967
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Show full item recordAbstract
In aerobic granular sludge (AGS) systems, different-sized microbial aggregates having different solids retention time (SRT) coexist in the same reactor compartment and are subjected to the same influent wastewater. Thus, the AGS system provides a unique ecosystem to study the importance of local (species sorting) and regional (immigration) processes in bacterial community assembly. The microbial communities of different-sized aggregates (flocs <0.2 mm, small granules (0.2–1.0 mm) and large granules >1.0 mm), influent wastewater, excess sludge and effluent of a full-scale AGS plant were characterized over a steady-state operation period of 6 months. Amplicon sequencing was integrated with mass balance to determine the SRT and net growth rate of operational taxonomic units (OTUs). We found strong evidence of species sorting as opposed to immigration, which was significantly higher at short SRT (i.e., flocs and small granules) than that at long SRT (large granules). Rare OTUs in wastewater belonging to putative functional groups responsible for nitrogen and phosphorus removal were progressively enriched with an increase in microbial aggregates size. In contrast, fecal- and sewage infrastructure-derived microbes progressively decreased in relative abundance with increase in microbial aggregate size. These findings highlight the importance of AGS as a unique model ecosystem to study fundamental microbial ecology concepts.Citation
Ali, M., Wang, Z., Salam, K. W., Hari, A. R., Pronk, M., van Loosdrecht, M. C. M., & Saikaly, P. E. (2019). Importance of Species Sorting and Immigration on the Bacterial Assembly of Different-Sized Aggregates in a Full-Scale Aerobic Granular Sludge Plant. Environmental Science & Technology, 53(14), 8291–8301. doi:10.1021/acs.est.8b07303Sponsors
This work was supported by Center Competitive Funding Program (FCC/1/ 1971-05-01) from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).Publisher
American Chemical Society (ACS)Additional Links
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.8b07303Relations
Is Supplemented By:- [Bioproject]
Title:Importance of Species Sorting and Immigration on the Bacterial Assembly of Different-Sized Aggregates in a Full-Scale Aerobic Granular Sludge Plant Date: 2017-07-30. bioproject: PRJNA396440 Handle: 10754/666567
ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1021/acs.est.8b07303