Constructed wetlands are used to treat acid drainage from surface or underground coal mines. However, little is known about the microbial communities in the receiving wetland cells. The purpose of this work was to characterize the microbial population present in a wetland that was receiving acid coal mine drainage (AMD). Samples were collected from the oxic sediment zone of a constructed wetland cell in southeastern Ohio that was treating acid drainage from an underground coal mine seep. Samples comprised Fe(III) precipitates and were pretreated with ammonium oxalate to remove interfering iron, and the DNA was extracted and purified by agarose gel electrophoresis prior to amplification of portions of the 16S rRNA gene. Amplified products were separated by denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis and DNA from seven distinct bands was excised from the gel and sequenced. The sequences were matched to sequences in the GenBank bacterial 16S rDNA database. The DNA in two of the bands yielded matches with Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans and the DNA in each of the remaining five bands was consistent with one of the following microorganisms: Acidithiobacillus thiooxidans, strain TRA3-20 (a eubacterium), strain BEN-4 (an arsenite-oxidizing bacterium), an Alcaligenes sp., and a Bordetella sp. Low bacterial diversity in these samples reflects the highly inorganic nature of the oxic sediment layer where high abundance of iron- and sulfur-oxidizing bacteria would be expected. The results we obtained by molecular methods supported our findings, obtained using culture methods, that the dominant microbial species in an acid receiving, oxic wetland are A. thiooxidans and A. ferrooxidans.

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Microorganisms are an integral part of the biogeochemical processes in wetlands, yet microbial communities in sediments within constructed wetlands receiving acid mine drainage (AMD) are only poorly understood. The purpose of this study was to characterize the microbial diversity and abundance in a wetland receiving AMD using fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) analysis. Seasonal samples of oxic surface sediments, comprised of Fe(III) precipitates, were collected from two treatment cells of the constructed wetland system. The pH of the bulk samples ranged between pH 2.1 and 3.9. Viable counts of acidophilic Fe and S oxidizers and heterotrophs were determined with a most probable number (MPN) method. The MPN counts were only a fraction of the corresponding FISH counts. The sediment samples contained microorganisms in the Bacteria (including the subgroups of acidophilic Fe- and S-oxidizing bacteria and Acidiphilium spp.) and Eukarya domains. Archaea were present in the sediment surface samples at < 0.01% of the total microbial community. The most numerous bacterial species in this wetland system was Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans, comprising up to 37% of the bacterial population. Acidithiobacillus thiooxidans was also abundant. Heterotrophs in the Acidiphilium genus totaled 20% of the bacterial population. Leptospirillum ferrooxidans was below the level of detection in the bacterial community. The results from the FISH technique from this field study are consistent with results from other experiments involving enumeration by most probable number, dot-blot hybridization, and denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis analyses and with the geochemistry of the site.

A sulfate-reducing bacterium, designated as strain R2, was isolated from wastewater of a ball-bearing manufacturing facility in Tomsk, Western Siberia. This isolate was resistant up to 800 mg Cu/l in the growth medium. By comparison, Cu-resistance of reference cultures of sulfate-reducing bacteria ranged from 50 to 75 mg Cu/l. Growth experiments with strain R2 showed that Cu was an essential trace element and, on one hand, enhanced growth at concentrations up to 10 mg/l but, on the other hand, the growth rate decreased and lag-period extended at copper concentrations of >50 mg/l. Phenotypic characteristics and a 1078 bp nucleotide sequence of the 16S rDNA placed strain R2 within the genus Desulfovibrio. Desulfovibrio R2 carried at least one plasmid of approximately of 23.1 kbp. A 636 bp fragment of the pcoR gene of the pco operon that encodes Cu resistance was amplified by PCR from plasmid DNA of strain R2. The pco genes are involved in Cu-resistance in some enteric and aerobic soil bacteria. Desulfovibrio R2 is a prospective strain for bioremediation purposes and for developing a homologous system for transformation of Cu-resistance in sulfate-reducing bacteria.