Impacts of microbial community composition on isotope fractionation during reductive dechlorination of tetrachloroethylene

Isotope fractionation has been used with increasing frequency as a tool to quantify degradation of chlorinated aliphatic pollutants in the environment. The objective of this research was to determine if the electron donor present in enrichment cultures prepared from uncontaminated sediments influenced the extent of isotope fractionation of tetrachloroethylene (PCE), either directly, or through its influence on microbial community composition. Two PCE-degrading enrichment cultures were prepared from Duck Pond (DP) sediment and were incubated with formate (DPF) or H-2 (DPH) as electron donor. DPF and DPH were significantly different in both product distribution and extent of isotope fractionation. Chemical and isotope analyses indicated that electron donors did not directly affect the product distribution or the extent of isotope fractionation for PCE reductive dechlorination. Instead, restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) and sequence analysis of the 16S rRNA clone libraries of DPF and DPH identified distinct microbial communities in each enrichment culture, suggesting that differences in microbial communities were responsible for distinct product distributions and isotope fractionation between the two cultures. A dominant species identified only in DPH was closely related to known dehalogenating species (Sulfurospirillum multivorans and Sulfurospirillum halorespirans) and may be responsible for PCE degradation in DPH. Our study suggests that different dechlorinators exist at the same site and can be preferentially stimulated by different electron donors, especially over the long-term (i.e., years), typical of in-situ ground water remediation.