Bacterial Diversity of Active Sludge in Wastewater Treatment Plant

A bacterial 16S rDNA gene clone library was constructed to analyze the bacterial diversity of active sludge in Gaobeidian Wastewater Treatment Plant, Beijing. The results indicated that the bacterial diversity of active sludge was very high, and the clones could be divided into 5 different groups. The dominant bacterial community was proteobacteria, which accounted for 76.7%. The dominant succession of bacterial community were as follows: the β-proteobacteria (39.8%), the uncultured bacteria (22.33%), the γ-proteobacteria (20.15%), the α-proteobacteria (6.79%), and the σ-proteobacteria (4.85%). Nitrosomonas-like and Nitrospira-like bacteria, such as Nitrosomonas sp. (1.94%) and uncultured Nitrospirae bacterium (11.65%) were also detected, which have played important roles in ammonia and nitrite oxidisers in the system. However, they were only a little amount because of their slow growth and less competitive advantage than heterotrophic bacteria. Denitrifying bacteria like Thauera sp. was at a high percentage, which implies a strong denitrification ability; Roseomonas sp. was also detected in the clone library, which could be related to the degradation of organophosphorus pesticide.