Effects of a long-term operation wetland for wastewater treatment on the spatial pattern and function of microbial communities in groundwater

Abstract

Constructed wetlands have been used globally for wastewater treatment owing to low energy inputs and operating costs. However, the impact of their long-term operation on groundwater microbial communities is still unclear. This study aims to investigate the effects and further reveal the linkage between a large-scale surface flow constructed wetland (in operation for 14 years) and groundwater. Changes in the characteristics of groundwater microbial communities and their potential influencing factors were studied based on hydrochemical analysis, Illumina MiSeq sequencing, and multivariate statistical analysis methods. Results show that the long-term operation wetland significantly elevated groundwater nutrient levels and increased the risk of ammonia nitrogen pollution compared to background values. An apparent heterogeneity of microbial communities exhibited in the vertical direction and a similarity in the horizontal direction. Wetland operations substantially altered the structure of microbial communities at 3, 5, and 12 m depths, particularly a reduced abundance of denitrifying and chemoheterotrophic functional genera. The formation and evolution of groundwater microbial community structure mainly subjected to the contributions of dissolved oxygen (33.70%), total nitrogen (21.40%), dissolved organic carbon (11.09%), and pH (10.60%) variations resulted from the wetland operation and largely differed in depths. A combined effect of these factors on the groundwater should be concerned for such a long-term running wetland system. This study provides a new insight into the responses of groundwater microbial community structure driving by wetland operation and a better understanding of corresponding variation of microbial-based geochemical processes.

Keywords: Constructed wetlands; Groundwater; Influencing factor; Microbial community; Spatial pattern.