Microbial diversity across compartments in an aquaponic system and its connection to the nitrogen cycle

Abstract

Aquaponics combines hydroponic crop production with recirculating aquaculture. These systems comprise various compartments (fish tank, biofilter, sump, hydroponic table, radial flow settler and anaerobic digester), each with their own specific environmental pressures, which trigger the formation of unique microbial communities. Triplicated aquaponic systems were used to investigate the microbial community composition during three lettuce growing cycles. The sampling of individual compartments allowed community patterns to be generated using amplicon sequencing of bacterial and archaeal 16S rRNA genes. Nitrifying bacteria were identified in the hydroponic compartments, indicating that these compartments may play a larger role than previously thought in the system's nitrogen cycle. In addition to the observed temporal changes in community compositions within the anaerobic compartment, more archaeal reads were obtained from sludge samples than from the aerobic part of the system. Lower bacterial diversity was observed in fresh fish feces, where a highly discrete gut flora composition was seen. Finally, the most pronounced differences in microbial community compositions were observed between the aerobic and anaerobic loops of the system, with unique bacterial compositions in each individual compartment.

Keywords: Aquaponics; Community analysis; archaea; bacteria; tilapia.