Effect of operational parameters, environmental conditions, and biotic interactions on bacterial communities present in urban wastewater treatment photobioreactors

The effects of water depth, operational and environmental conditions on bacterial communities were analyzed in microalgal-bacterial outdoor photobioreactors treating urban wastewaters from March to August 2014. Three raceway photobioreactors inoculated with Scenedesmus sp. and with different water depths (20, 12, and 5 cm) were used at different dilution rates (0.15, 0.3, 0.4, and 0.5 d(-1)). A thin-layer reactor with 2 cm water depth and operated at 0.3 d(-1) was used as a control. The results showed that biomass productivity increased as water depth decreased. The highest biomass productivity was 0.196 gL(-1)d(-1), 0.245 gL(-1)d(-1), and 0.457 gL(-1)d(-1) for 20, 12, and 5 cm depth raceway photobioreactors, respectively. These values were lower than the maximum productivity registered in the control reactor (1.59 gL(-1)d(-1)). Bacterial communities, analyzed by high-throughput 16S rRNA sequencing, were not affected by water depth. A decrease in community evenness was related to a decrease in nutrient removal. Hetetrotrophs and phototrophs, mainly from the family Rhodobacteraceae, dominated bacterial diversity. The community changed due to increasing temperatures, irradiance, and organic carbon, ammonia, and phosphate contents in the photobioreactor-influent as well as, microalgae inhibition and higher organic carbon in the effluent. The photobioreactors shared a core-biome that contained five clusters of co-occurring microorganisms. The bacteria from the different clusters were taxonomically and ecologically different but functionally redundant. Overall, the drivers of the community changes could be related to abiotic variables and complex biological interactions, likely mediated by microalgae excretion of organic substances and the microorganisms' competence for substrates.

Automated summary

The study showed that biomass productivity in photobioreactors increased as water depth decreased, but a decrease in bacterial community evenness may lead to a reduction in nutrient removal. Heterotrophs and phototrophs, mainly from the family Rhodobacteraceae, dominated bacterial diversity, and community changes were driven by various environmental factors and biological interactions.