Abstract
Bacterial communities in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) affect plant functionality through their role in the removal of pollutants from wastewater. Bacterial communities vary extensively based on plant operating conditions and influent characteristics. The capacity of WWTPs can also affect the bacterial community via variations in the organic or nutrient composition of the influent. Despite the importance considering capacity, the characteristics that control bacterial community assembly are largely unknown. In this study, we discovered that bacterial communities in WWTPs in Korea and Vietnam, which differ remarkably in capacity, exhibit unique structures and interactions that are governed mainly by the capacity of WWTPs. Bacterial communities were analysed using 16S rRNA gene sequencing and exhibited clear differences between the two regions, with these differences being most pronounced in activated sludge. We found that capacity contributed the most to bacterial interactions and community structure, whereas other factors had less impact. Co-occurrence network analysis showed that microorganisms from high-capacity WWTPs are more interrelated than those from low-capacity WWTPs, which corresponds to the tighter clustering of bacterial communities in Korea. These results will contribute to the understanding of bacterial community assembly in activated sludge processing.
Highlights
Wastewater treatment encompasses the processes that convert contaminated water into a sufficiently clean state that can be discharged to surface water with minimal adverse environmental impact
Most of biological treatments of Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in this study have been operated by anaerobic/anoxic/oxic (A2O) or modified Ludzack-Ettinger (MLE) processes for treating domestic wastewater, except for one WWTP that used sequencing batch reactor (SBR) for industry wastewater
SRT is closely related to the flow rate because it is affected by the amount of sludge generated by the capacity of the WWTPs and the required MLSS concentrations
Summary
Wastewater treatment encompasses the processes that convert contaminated water into a sufficiently clean state that can be discharged to surface water with minimal adverse environmental impact. Bacterial community composition, diversity, and dynamics, which are shaped by both operating conditions and influent characteristics[3,4], are the major factors that determine the performance of a wide range of biological treatments and activated sludge (AS) processing[5,6,7,8]. Despite recent advances in our understanding of the effects of capacity on the bacterial diversity and structure of WWTPs, information on the bacterial interactions or community assembly remains elusive. This information is essential for identifying the key players in the biological treatment process and understanding the sludge assembly for stable wastewater treatment. We evaluated the key players (hub members) to interpret their functional potentials in WWTPs with different capacities
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
