Journal
WATER RESEARCH X
Volume 15, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.wroa.2022.100131
Keywords
Nitrification; Ammonia-oxidizing archaea; Nitrospira; Comammox; Ammonia oxidation; Water treatment; amoA
Funding
- Canada Graduate Scholarship
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
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Nitrification, the process of converting ammonia to nitrate, plays a significant role in engineered water treatment systems. Different microbial guilds participate in this process, however, their relative contributions to nitrogen cycling are still not well understood. Understanding the active nitrifiers is crucial for optimizing engineered systems that rely on nitrifiers for ammonia removal.
Nitrification, the oxidation of ammonia to nitrate via nitrite, is important for many engineered water treatment systems. The sequential steps of this respiratory process are carried out by distinct microbial guilds, including ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and archaea (AOA), nitrite-oxidizing bacteria (NOB), and newly discovered members of the genus Nitrospira that conduct complete ammonia oxidation (comammox). Even though all of these nitrifiers have been identified within water treatment systems, their relative contributions to nitrogen cycling are poorly understood. Although AOA contribute to nitrification in many wastewater treatment plants, they are generally outnumbered by AOB. In contrast, AOA and comammox Nitrospira typically dominate relatively low ammonia environments such as drinking water treatment, tertiary wastewater treatment systems, and aquaculture/aquarium filtration. Studies that focus on the abundance of ammonia oxidizers may misconstrue the actual role that distinct nitrifying guilds play in a system. Understanding which ammonia oxidizers are active is useful for further optimization of engineered systems that rely on nitrifiers for ammonia removal. This review highlights known distributions of AOA and comammox Nitrospira in engineered water treatment systems and suggests future research directions that will help assess their contributions to nitrification and identify factors that influence their distributions and activity.
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