Aerobic denitrifying bacterial-fungal consortium mediating nitrate removal: Dynamics, network patterns and interactions

In recent years, nitrogen removal by mixed microbial cultures has received increasing attention owing to cooperative metabolism. A natural bacterial-fungal consortium was isolated from mariculture, which exhibited an excellent aerobic denitrification capacity. Under aerobic conditions, nitrate removal and denitrifi-cation efficiencies were up to 100% and 44.27%, respectively. High-throughput sequencing and network analysis suggested that aerobic denitrification was potentially driven by the co-occurrence of the following bacterial and fungal genera: Vibrio, Fusarium, Gibberella, Meyerozyma, Exophiala and Pseudoaltero-monas, with the dominance of Vibrio and Fusarium in bacterial and fungal commu-nities, respectively. In addition, the isolated consortium had a high steady aerobic denitrification performance in our sub-culturing experiments. Our results provide new insights on the dynamics, network patterns and interactions of aerobic denitrifying microbial consortia with a high potential for new biotechnology applications.

Automated summary

In recent years, the use of mixed microbial cultures for nitrogen removal has gained attention due to cooperative metabolism. A natural bacterial-fungal consortium isolated from mariculture showed excellent aerobic denitrification capacity, with nitrate removal and denitrification efficiencies reaching 100% and 44.27%, respectively. High-throughput sequencing and network analysis revealed that the co-occurrence of bacterial genera such as Vibrio and fungal genera such as Fusarium potentially drove the aerobic denitrification process. The consortium also exhibited high steady aerobic denitrification performance in sub-culturing experiments, highlighting its potential for biotechnology applications.