title: Structure and composition of biofilm communities in a moving bed biofilm reactor for nitritation-anammox at low temperatures.
abstract: It is a challenge to apply anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) for nitrogen removal from wastewater at low temperatures. Maintenance of anammox- and aerobic ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and suppression of nitrite oxidizing bacteria (NOB) are key issues. In this work, a nitritation-anammox moving bed biofilm pilot reactor was operated at 19-10°C for 300 d. Nitrogen removal was decreasing, but stable, at 19-13°C. At 10°C removal became unstable. Quantitative PCR, fluorescence in situ hybridization and gene sequencing showed that no major microbial community changes were observed with decreased temperature. Anammox bacteria dominated the biofilm (0.9-1.2 × 10(14) 16S rRNA copies m(-2)). Most anammox bacteria were similar to Brocadia sp. 40, but another smaller Brocadia population was present near the biofilm-water interface, where also the AOB community (Nitrosomonas) was concentrated in thin layers (1.8-5.3 × 10(12) amoA copies m(-2)). NOB (Nitrobacter, Nitrospira) were always present at low concentrations (<1.3 × 10(11) 16S rRNA copies m(-2)).
authors.affiliation: Water Environment Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, SE-412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden. Electronic address: frank.persson@chalmers.se.
authors.forename: Frank
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Persson
authors.affiliation: Dept. of Land and Water Resources Engineering, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Teknikringen 76, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: Razia
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sultana
authors.affiliation: Dept. of Chemistry and Molecular Biology/Microbiology, University of Gothenburg, Medicinaregatan 9E, SE-413 90 Gothenburg, Sweden.
authors.forename: Carolina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Suarez
authors.affiliation: Dept. of Chemistry and Molecular Biology/Microbiology, University of Gothenburg, Medicinaregatan 9E, SE-413 90 Gothenburg, Sweden.
authors.forename: Malte
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hermansson
authors.affiliation: Dept. of Land and Water Resources Engineering, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Teknikringen 76, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: Elzbieta
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Plaza
authors.affiliation: Water Environment Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, SE-412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden.
authors.forename: Britt-Marie
authors.initials: BM
authors.lastname: Wilén
mesh_terms: D000641:Ammonia / Q000378:metabolism*; D064751:Ammonium Compounds / Q000378:metabolism; D000693:Anaerobiosis; D001419:Bacteria / Q000378:metabolism; D018441:Biofilms; D019149:Bioreactors / Q000382:microbiology*; D003080:Cold Temperature; D017404:In Situ Hybridization, Fluorescence; D059013:Microbial Consortia; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D058465:Nitrification; D009584:Nitrogen / Q000378:metabolism; D010084:Oxidation-Reduction; D010802:Phylogeny
chemical_list: D064751:Ammonium Compounds; D000641:Ammonia; D009584:Nitrogen
keywords: FISH–CLSM; Low temperature; MBBR; Microbial community analysis; Nitritation–anammox