The membrane-aerated biofilm reactor (MABR) is a promising municipal wastewater treatment process. In this study, two cross-flow MABRs were constructed to explore the carbon and nitrogen removal performance and bacterial succession, along with changes of influent loading shock comprising flow velocity, COD, and NH4-N concentrations. Redundancy analysis revealed that the function of high flow velocity was mainly embodied in facilitating contaminants diffusion and biosorption rather than the success of overall bacterial populations (p > 0.05). In contrast, the influent NH4-N concentration contributed most to the variance of reactor efficiency and community structure (p < 0.05). Pyrosequencing results showed that Anaerolineae, and Beta- and Alphaproteobacteria were the dominant groups in biofilms for COD and NH4-N removal. Among the identified genera, Nitrosomonas and Nitrospira were the main nitrifiers, and Hyphomicrobium, Hydrogenophaga, and Rhodobacter were the key denitrifiers. Meanwhile, principal component analysis indicated that bacterial shift in MABR was probably the combination of stochastic and deterministic processes.
Keywords: MABR; bacterial community assembly; biofilm; flow velocity.