Microbial community structure and diversity in a municipal solid waste landfill

Abstract

Municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills are the most prevalent waste disposal method and constitute one of the largest sources of anthropogenic methane emissions in the world. Microbial activities in disposed waste play a crucial role in greenhouse gas emissions; however, only a few studies have examined metagenomic microbial profiles in landfills. Here, the MiSeq high-throughput sequencing method was applied for the first time to examine microbial diversity of the cover soil and stored waste located at different depths (0-150cm) in a typical MSW landfill in Yangzhou City, East China. The abundance of microorganisms in the cover soil (0-30cm) was the lowest among all samples, whereas that in stored waste decreased from the top to the middle layer (30-90cm) and then increased from the middle to the bottom layer (90-150cm). In total, 14 phyla and 18 genera were found in the landfill. A microbial diversity analysis showed that Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, and Bacteroidetes were the dominant phyla, whereas Halanaerobium, Methylohalobius, Syntrophomonas, Fastidiosipila, and Spirochaeta were the dominant genera. Methylohalobius (methanotrophs) was more abundant in the cover layers of soil than in stored waste, whereas Syntrophomonas and Fastidiosipila, which affect methane production, were more abundant in the middle to bottom layers (90-150cm) in stored waste. A canonical correlation analysis showed that microbial diversity in the landfill was most strongly correlated with the conductivity, organic matter, and moisture content of the stored waste.

Microbial Communities and Sulfate-Reducing Microorganisms Abundance and Diversity in Municipal Anaerobic Sewage Sludge Digesters from a Wastewater Treatment Plant (Marrakech, Morocco)

“…Using MiSeq sequencing, 984 OTUs were found out present in all samples. These results are in the range of those found by other studies carried out with the same primers (V4-V5 region of the 16S rRNA gene) [3,39,40]. The study of dynamics of microbial association networks in mesophilic continuous anaerobic digesters revealed the presence of a total of 908 OTUs [40].…”

Next-generation sequencing showing potential leachate influence on bacterial communities around a landfill in China

“…Leachate samples RL and FL2 had the least diverse phyla detection, in contrast to other landfill leachate studies (Song et al, 2015a, Wang et al, 2017. The high concentration of As and Hg in RL and FL2 could have inhibited the growth of other phyla, whereas Pseudomonas spp.…”

“…have recently been identified as key members of arsenotrophic consortia in contaminated groundwater environments in Bangladesh (Sultana et al, 2017). The low diversity in leachate samples, compared with samples taken from within the landfill (e.g., (Wang et al, 2017) may also be due to the concentration of landfill microbiota within surface-attached biofilms rather than in mobile planktonic forms (Costerton and Wilson, 2004). Landfill and urban site soil and groundwater samples shared most of the phyla except for Chlamydiae; which was only found in USGW.…”

“…To study complex microbial ecosystems such as leachate, molecular techniques have several advantages over culture-based techniques as they allow the analysis of uncultured organisms and provide higher resolution measurements closer to the complete microbial profile (Staley et al, 2011). Analysing the microbial community around a landfill can potentially determine whether the leachate is being transported through the landfill liner into the natural soil and groundwater, via changes in the diversity and composition of bacterial consortia as different species are more or less tolerant of elevated pollutant concentrations (Wang et al, 2017, El-Salam and Abu-Zuid, 2015, Vukanti et al, 2009.…”

Halophilic Methylotrophic Methanogens May Contribute to the High Ammonium Concentrations Found in Shale Oil and Shale Gas Reservoirs

“…Formation of methane and ammonium from GB therefore likely involved syntrophy of Halanaerobium and Methanohalophilus (Table S4, Equations 3, 4; Daly et al, 2016;Borton et al, 2018). Interestingly, members of the Sphingobacteriales can be closely associated with Halanaerobium and Methanohalophilus, possibly involved in the carbon cycle at extreme conditions though little are known about the metabolic pathways involved (Wang et al, 2017).…”