Microbial community diversity of an integrated constructed wetland used for treatment of sewage

The microbial community diversity in Constructed Wetland System (CWS) plays a key role in the removal of pollutants from waste water. An integrated functional CWS developed at Neela Hauz Biodiversity Park, Delhi was selected to assess the diversity in composition and structure of microbial community diversity of sludge and sediment of CWS, based on metagenomic approach using 16S rRNA genes. The sediment showed higher diversity than sludge and both formed distinct clusters. The taxonomic structure of the microbial community of CWS is represented by 6,731 OTUs distributed among 2 kingdoms, 103 phyla, 227 classes, 337 orders, 320 families, 295 identified genera, and 84 identified species. The relative abundance of top 5 dominant phyla of sludge and sediment varied from 3.77% (Acidobacteria) to 35.33% (Proteobacteria) and 4.07% (Firmicutes) to 28.20% (Proteobacteria), respectively. The range of variation in relative abundance of top 5 dominant genera of sludge and sediment was 2.58% (Hyphomicrobium) to 6.61% (Planctomyces) and 2.47% (Clostridium) to 4.22% (Syntrophobacter), respectively. The rich microbial diversity of CWS makes it perform better in pollutants removal (59.91–95.76%) than other CWs. Based on the abundance values of taxa, the taxa are grouped under four frequency distribution classes—abundant (>20), common (10–19), rare (5–9), and very rare (1–4). The unique structure of microbial communities of integrated CWS is that the number of abundant taxa decrea...
Source: Frontiers in Microbiology - Category: Microbiology Source Type: research