Composting swine carcasses with nitrogen transformation microbial strains: Succession of microbial community and nitrogen functional genes

Abstract

In this study, nitrogen transformation strains, including three ammonium transformation strains, one nitrite strain and one nitrogen fixer, were inoculated at different swine carcass composting stages to regulate the nitrogen transformation and control the nitrogen loss. The final total nitrogen content was significantly increased (p < 0.01). The bacterial communities were assessed by amplicon sequencing and association analysis. Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes were the four most dominant phyla.,Brevibacterium, Streptomyces and Ochrobactrum had a significant (p < 0.05) and positive correlation with total nitrogen and ammonium nitrogen content in both groups. The quantitative results of nitrogen transformation genes showed that ammonification, nitrification, denitrification and nitrogen fixation were simultaneously present in the composting process of swine carcasses, with the latter two accounting for a higher proportion. The ammonium transformation strains significantly (p < 0.05) strengthened nitrogen fixation and remarkably (p < 0.01) weakened nitrification and denitrification, which, however, were notably (p < 0.05) enhanced by the nitrite strain and nitrogen fixer. In this research, the inoculated strains changed the bacterial structure by regulating the abundance and activity of the highly connected taxa, which facilitated the growth of nitrogen transformation bacteria and regulated the balance/symbiosis of nitrogen transformation processes to accelerate the accumulation of nitrogen.