Dataset Information

Profiling microbial communities in manganese remediation systems treating coal mine drainage.

ABSTRACT: Water discharging from abandoned coal mines can contain extremely high manganese levels. Removing this metal is an ongoing challenge. Passive Mn(II) removal beds (MRBs) contain microorganisms that oxidize soluble Mn(II) to insoluble Mn(III/IV) minerals, but system performance is unpredictable. Using amplicon pyrosequencing, we profiled the bacterial, fungal, algal, and archaeal communities in four MRBs, performing at different levels, in Pennsylvania to determine whether they differed among MRBs and from surrounding soil and to establish the relative abundance of known Mn(II) oxidizers. Archaea were not detected; PCRs with archaeal primers returned only nontarget bacterial sequences. Fungal taxonomic profiles differed starkly between sites that remove the majority of influent Mn and those that do not, with the former being dominated by Ascomycota (mostly Dothideomycetes) and the latter by Basidiomycota (almost entirely Agaricomycetes). Taxonomic profiles for the other groups did not differ significantly between MRBs, but operational taxonomic unit-based analyses showed significant clustering by MRB with all three groups (P < 0.05). Soil samples clustered separately from MRBs in all groups except fungi, whose soil samples clustered loosely with their respective MRB. Known Mn(II) oxidizers accounted for a minor proportion of bacterial sequences (up to 0.20%) but a greater proportion of fungal sequences (up to 14.78%). MRB communities are more diverse than previously thought, and more organisms may be capable of Mn(II) oxidation than are currently known.

SUBMITTER: Chaput DL

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4345392 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Profiling microbial communities in manganese remediation systems treating coal mine drainage.

Chaput Dominique L DL Hansel Colleen M CM Burgos William D WD Santelli Cara M CM

Applied and environmental microbiology 20150116 6

Water discharging from abandoned coal mines can contain extremely high manganese levels. Removing this metal is an ongoing challenge. Passive Mn(II) removal beds (MRBs) contain microorganisms that oxidize soluble Mn(II) to insoluble Mn(III/IV) minerals, but system performance is unpredictable. Using amplicon pyrosequencing, we profiled the bacterial, fungal, algal, and archaeal communities in four MRBs, performing at different levels, in Pennsylvania to determine whether they differed among MRBs ...[more]

PMID: 25595765

Similar Datasets

Project description:Predicting the dynamics of community composition and functional attributes responding to environmental changes is an essential goal in community ecology but remains a major challenge, particularly in microbial ecology. Here, by targeting a model system with low species richness, we explore the spatial distribution of taxonomic and functional structure of 40 acid mine drainage (AMD) microbial communities across Southeast China profiled by 16S ribosomal RNA pyrosequencing and a comprehensive microarray (GeoChip). Similar environmentally dependent patterns of dominant microbial lineages and key functional genes were observed regardless of the large-scale geographical isolation. Functional and phylogenetic ?-diversities were significantly correlated, whereas functional metabolic potentials were strongly influenced by environmental conditions and community taxonomic structure. Using advanced modeling approaches based on artificial neural networks, we successfully predicted the taxonomic and functional dynamics with significantly higher prediction accuracies of metabolic potentials (average Bray-Curtis similarity 87.8) as compared with relative microbial abundances (similarity 66.8), implying that natural AMD microbial assemblages may be better predicted at the functional genes level rather than at taxonomic level. Furthermore, relative metabolic potentials of genes involved in many key ecological functions (for example, nitrogen and phosphate utilization, metals resistance and stress response) were extrapolated to increase under more acidic and metal-rich conditions, indicating a critical strategy of stress adaptation in these extraordinary communities. Collectively, our findings indicate that natural selection rather than geographic distance has a more crucial role in shaping the taxonomic and functional patterns of AMD microbial community that readily predicted by modeling methods and suggest that the model-based approach is essential to better understand natural acidophilic microbial communities.

Project description:Acidification occurs as a result of acid mine drainage after the oxidative weathering of metal sulfides. The acidic condition corrodes other toxic elements from the soil and becomes distributed around the operating site. Although coal mines go through a process of rehabilitation, water samples in the rehabilitated reservoir still reveal high concentrations of certain metals, for example, manganese (Mn). Both living and non-living biomass substances were used in Mn remediation. However, using non-living biomass as a sorbent may be inappropriate for the purposes of upscaling in high-volume water bodies. Thus, living microalga, Pediastrum duplex AARLG060, has become of significant interest for this type of application. The Mn remediation of microalga was performed by biosorption and bio-oxidation. The aim of this study was to evaluate the potential of microalgal Mn remediation of the water obtained from a rehabilitated coal-mine reservoir. The equilibrium and isotherm values of the remediation process were also studied. The microalga was used to remediate Mn in water under three different water conditions, including filtrated water obtained from the rehabilitated site, non-filtrated water that was sterilized with an autoclave, and non-treated water. Remediation was performed by culturing microalga with modified medium consisting of N, P, C, and Mg nutrients. The remediated Mn concentration present in the cultures was detected by atomic absorption spectroscopy. The precipitated Mn was collected as a result of bio-oxidation, and EDTA was used to wash Mn from the biomass. This was designated as an adsorption result. Characterization of biosorption was evaluated by employing the Langmuir and Freundlich models. The results demonstrated that all treatments of living microalga could support Mn bio-oxidation. The Mn remediation was successfully performed at over 97% in every treatment. The adsorption characteristics revealed a close similarity to the Langmuir isotherm of monolayer adsorption. The scanning electron microscope-energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) indicated precipitation of Mn oxide on the cell surface, while transmission electron microscopy (TEM) revealed that the nanoparticles of Mn were scattered mainly in the chloroplast and throughout the vacuoles of the cells.

Dataset Information

Profiling microbial communities in manganese remediation systems treating coal mine drainage.

Publications

Profiling microbial communities in manganese remediation systems treating coal mine drainage.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets