Diversity and metabolism effects of microorganisms in bioretention systems with sand, soil and fly ash

• Published in: The Science of the total environment 2019-08, Vol.676, p.447-454
• Main Authors: Zuo, XiaoJun, Guo, ZiYan, Wu, Xiao, Yu, Jianghua
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Bioretention; Fly ash; Metabolism; Microbial diversity; Nutrient removal; Sand
• ISSN: 0048-9697; 1879-1026
• DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.04.340

Recently, both sand and fly ash have been used for nutrient removal in bioretention systems. However, the improvement in nutrient removal was hampered by a lack of data about of microbial diversity and metabolism effects in the mentioned materials based bioretention systems. Therefore, a mixture with sand, soil and fly ash (1:1:1) was selected as the base in bioretention systems. The investigation of microbial diversity implied that 11 dominant microflora were found, which changed weakly at phylum level but significantly at genus level. The analysis for both urease and extracellular polymer (EPS) showed that urease levels increased with the increase of submerged zone height, which was in line with nitrogen removal, while EPS had the opposite situation. Overall evaluation of microbial role suggested that the enhancement of dominant microflora in the used bioretention systems, like Chloroflexi and Nitrospirae, could strengthen nitrogen removal. [Display omitted] •The top 11 dominant microflora were found in the used bioretention systems.•Change of phylum level was different from that of genus level when varying conditions.•Metabolism levels within layered structure were higher than that of mixed structure.•The reduction of Chloroflexi impeded NH3-N removal when submerged zone increasing.•The reduction of Nitrospirae promoted NO3− removal when submerged zone increasing.