title: Ignored fungal community in activated sludge wastewater treatment plants: diversity and altitudinal characteristics.
abstract: Fungi are important contributors to the various functions of activated sludge wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs); however, the diversity and geographic characteristics of fungal populations have remained vastly unexplored. Here, quantitative polymerase chain reaction and 454 pyrosequencing were combined to investigate the abundance and diversity of the activated sludge fungal communities from 18 full-scale municipal WWTPs in China. Phylogenetic taxonomy revealed that the members of the fungal communities were assigned to 7 phyla and 195 genera. Ascomycota and Basidiomycota were the most abundant phyla, dominated by Pluteus, Wickerhamiella, and Penicillium. Twenty-three fungal genera, accounting for 50.1 % of the total reads, were shared by 18 WWTPs and constituted a core fungal community. The fungal communities presented similar community diversity but different community structures across the WWTPs. Significant distance decay relationships were observed for the dissimilarity in fungal community structure and altitudinal distance between WWTPs. Additionally, the community evenness increased from 0.25 to 0.7 as the altitude increased. Dissolved oxygen and the C/N ratio were determined to be the most dominant contributors to the variation in fungal community structure via redundancy analysis. The observed data demonstrated the diverse occurrence of fungal species and gave a marked view of fungal community characteristics based on the previously unexplored fungal communities in activated sludge WWTPs.
authors.affiliation: Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Integrated Regulation and Resource Development on Shallow Lakes, College of Environment, Hohai University, Nanjing, 210098, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Lihua
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Niu
authors.affiliation: Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Integrated Regulation and Resource Development on Shallow Lakes, College of Environment, Hohai University, Nanjing, 210098, People's Republic of China. envly@hhu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Yi
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2226-6996
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Jiangsu Province Water Engineering Sci-tech Consulting Company Limited, Nanjing, 210029, China.
authors.forename: Lingling
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Integrated Regulation and Resource Development on Shallow Lakes, College of Environment, Hohai University, Nanjing, 210098, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Peifang
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Integrated Regulation and Resource Development on Shallow Lakes, College of Environment, Hohai University, Nanjing, 210098, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Wenlong
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Integrated Regulation and Resource Development on Shallow Lakes, College of Environment, Hohai University, Nanjing, 210098, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Chao
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Integrated Regulation and Resource Development on Shallow Lakes, College of Environment, Hohai University, Nanjing, 210098, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Cai
authors.affiliation: Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Integrated Regulation and Resource Development on Shallow Lakes, College of Environment, Hohai University, Nanjing, 210098, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Linqiong
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D000531:Altitude; D005658:Fungi / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics; D010802:Phylogeny; D012722:Sewage / Q000382:microbiology*; D062065:Wastewater / Q000382:microbiology*
chemical_list: D012722:Sewage; D062065:Wastewater
keywords: Activated sludge; Altitude; Distance decay relationship; Fungal community; Redundancy analysis