Abstract
Many natural and engineered biofilm systems periodically face disturbances. Here we present how the recovery time of a biofilm between disturbances (expressed as disturbance frequency) shapes the development of morphology and community structure in a multi-species biofilm at the landscape scale. It was hypothesized that a high disturbance frequency favors the development of a stable adapted biofilm system while a low disturbance frequency promotes a dynamic biofilm response. Biofilms were grown in laboratory-scale reactors over a period of 55-70 days and exposed to the biocide monochloramine at two frequencies: daily or weekly pulse injections. One untreated reactor served as control. Biofilm morphology and community structure were followed on comparably large biofilm areas at the landscape scale using automated image analysis (spatial gray level dependence matrices) and community fingerprinting (single-strand conformation polymorphisms). We demonstrated that a weekly disturbed biofilm developed a resilient morphology and community structure. Immediately after the disturbance, the biofilm simplified but recovered its initial complex morphology and community structure between two biocide pulses. In the daily treated reactor, one organism largely dominated a morphologically simple and stable biofilm. Disturbances primarily affected the abundance distribution of already present bacterial taxa but did not promote growth of previously undetected organisms. Our work indicates that disturbances can be used as lever to engineer biofilms by maintaining a biofilm between two developmental states.
Highlights
In macroscopic landscapes like forest ecosystems, disturbances as for example windfall may cause the onset of a new cycle of development [1]
Battin et al picked up the windfall example and used it in the development of biofilms in analogy to detachment after a flow-induced disturbance [2]. They argued that biofilms can be considered microbial landscapes formed by a response to environmental conditions and the interactions of their microbial inhabitants
We quantified the effect of monochloramine on biofilm development and used Principal Components and Principal Coordinate axes with time to display the results
Summary
In macroscopic landscapes like forest ecosystems, disturbances as for example windfall may cause the onset of a new cycle of development [1]. Battin et al picked up the windfall example and used it in the development of biofilms in analogy to detachment after a flow-induced disturbance [2] They argued that biofilms can be considered microbial landscapes formed by a response to environmental conditions and the interactions of their microbial inhabitants. When attempting to follow the development of the microbial landscape of a biofilm it is necessary to observe continuous areas that are larger than their landscape elements [5]. This is frequently impossible with traditional microscopic techniques and requires alternative analytical approaches
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