Prolonged starvation and subsequent recovery of nitrification process in a simulated photovoltaic aeration SBR

The ability of a new SBR (sequencing batch reactor) based on simulating photovoltaic aeration for maintaining nitrification activity under a 25-day starvation period was studied. The activity and abundance of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and nitrite-oxidizing bacteria (NOB) and the diversity of AOB were investigated. The measured biomass decay rates were 0.017 day −1 and 0.029 day −1 for AOB and NOB, respectively. These decay rates correlated well with AOB and NOB population quantified by real-time PCR. The recovery of ammonia oxidation rate and nitrite oxidation rate needed 4 and 7 days, respectively, indicating that NOB was more affected than AOB by starvation conditions. According to the real-time PCR results, Nitrospira was the dominant NOB in the reactor. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that Nitrosomonas oligotropha cluster was the dominant major cluster before and after starvation. Moreover, Pareto-Lorenz evenness distribution curves were plotted to interpret the interspecies abundance of AOB; the results suggested that AOB community possessed a balanced structure with medium Fo (Functional organization). Thus, the community can potentially deal with changing environmental conditions (e.g., starvation) and preserve its functionality according to the concept of functional redundancy.