Microbial community dynamics and functional responses that contribute to tolerance of high concentrations of petroleum hydrocarbon

Abstract

BACKGROUND It is a common problem that high‐concentration petroleum hydrocarbon (hc‐PH) is difficult to degrade and remove using biological methods. RESULTS In this study, when the concentrations of petroleum hydrocarbon (PH) were increased from 972.4 ± 40.3 to 6953.8 ± 294.3 mg L−1, all degradation rates of PH by activated sludge (AS) were beyond 79%. However, the degradation rate of hc‐PH (from 9958.3 ± 401.6 to 19 953.3 ± 896.5 mg L−1) by AS was significantly lower than that of low‐concentration petroleum hydrocarbon (lc‐PH) (from 972.4 ± 40.3 to 6953.8 ± 294.3 mg L−1). Meanwhile, the heterotrophic microorganism number and bacterial community diversity in the hc‐PH environment were lower than those in the lc‐PH environment. Sequencing results of the bacterial community showed that the dominant bacterial community of AS was stable and composed by the genera Pseudomonas, Acinetobacter and Burkholderia‐Paraburkholderia in the hc‐PH condition. Moreover, aimed to enhance the tolerance to hc‐PH stress, the relative abundances of microbial community functions of environmental adaptation, membrane transport, replication and repair were increased. However, the digestive system, circulatory system and endocrine system of the microbial community were significantly disturbed by hc‐PH, which eventually caused the degradation rate of PH by AS to decrease significantly. CONCLUSION Thus the decrease of microbial community diversity and tolerance ability can be regarded as the main limiting factors to enhance the degradation rate of hc‐PH by microorganisms. © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry

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