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. 2022 Feb 10;807(Pt 3):151080.
doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.151080. Epub 2021 Oct 19.

Wastewater constituents impact biofilm microbial community in receiving streams

Manu Tamminen  1 , Jenny Spaak  2 , Ahmed Tlili  3 , Rik Eggen  4 , Christian Stamm  5 , Katja Räsänen  6
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Free article

Wastewater constituents impact biofilm microbial community in receiving streams

Manu Tamminen et al. Sci Total Environ. .
Free article

Abstract

Microbial life in natural biofilms is dominated by prokaryotes and microscopic eukaryotes living in dense association. In stream ecosystems, microbial biofilms influence primary production, elemental cycles, food web interactions as well as water quality. Understanding how biofilm communities respond to anthropogenic impacts, such as wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluent, is important given the key role of biofilms in stream ecosystem function. Here, we implemented 16S and 18S rRNA gene sequencing of stream biofilms upstream (US) and downstream (DS) of WWTP effluents in four Swiss streams to test how bacterial and eukaryotic communities respond to wastewater constituents. Stream biofilm composition was strongly affected by geographic location - particularly for bacteria. However, the abundance of certain microbial community members was related to micropollutants in the wastewater - among bacteria, micropollutant-associated members were found e.g. in Alphaproteobacteria, and among eukaryotes e.g. in Bacillariophyta (algal diatoms). This study corroborates several previously characterized responses (e.g. as seen in diatoms), but also reveals previously unknown community responses - such as seen in Alphaproteobacteria. This study advances our understanding of the ecological impact of the current wastewater treatment practices and provides information about potential new marker organisms to assess ecological change in stream biofilms.

Keywords: Bacterial community; Biofilm; Diatom; Micropollutant; Wastewater treatment.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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