Abstract
Eutrophication is one of the major ecological problems of our era. It accelerates the growth of aquatic plant and algae, eventually leading to ecological deterioration. Based on a 700-day lab experiment, this paper investigated the contrasting effects of sediment microbial fuel cells (SMFCs) on the removal of macrophyte litter in a macrophyte-dominated area and an algae-dominated area from two bay areas of a shallow eutrophic lake. The results revealed that the removal efficiencies of total organic carbon increased by 14.4% in the macrophyte-dominated area and 7.8% in the algae-dominated area. Moreover, it was found that sediment samples from the macrophyte-dominated area became more humified and had a higher electricity generation compared to the sediment samples from the algae-dominated area. Pyrosequencing analysis further determined that SMFC promoted more aromatic compound-degrading bacteria growth in sediments from the macrophyte-dominated area than from the algae-dominated area. Our study demonstrated that SMFC could enhance organic matter degradation, especially plant litter degradation, but this influence showed different from sediment sources. Thus, SMFC is capable of providing a useful strategy for delaying the terrestrialization of lakes areas suffering from eutrophication.
Highlights
Lake eutrophication has become one of the most serious ecological problems of the 21st century [1].In aquatic ecosystems, especially for shallow lakes, eutrophication is often caused by excessive nutrient loading (i.e., N and P) [2,3]
The overall objectives of this study were to investigate the effects of sediment microbial fuel cell (SMFC) on litter removal and how that removal affects the different properties of sediments
The voltage from SMFCs increased quickly during the former 35 days. This was the startup stage of SMFC and an electrochemically active biofilm on the anode surfaces was formed during this period [26,27]
Summary
Lake eutrophication has become one of the most serious ecological problems of the 21st century [1]. Especially for shallow lakes, eutrophication is often caused by excessive nutrient loading (i.e., N and P) [2,3]. Eutrophication triggers instability of the ecosystems, which can be invaded by aquatic plants. Eutrophication can create enough nutrients for aquatic plant growth. Macrophytes usually spread rapidly in these shallow water areas, which include wetlands, fens, and peat lakes [5,6]. Restoration of macrophytes has been proposed as an ecological strategy to improve water quality and to rehabilitate the degraded lake ecosystem, which causes rapid aquatic plant growth [7]. Plant tissues become abundant and settle into sediments as litter
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