Stability of a mixed microbial population in a biological reactor during long term atrazine degradation under carbon limiting conditions

Abstract The stability of a mixed bacterial population in a fixed bed reactor for atrazine biodegradation under carbon limiting conditions was examined. A one litre reactor was filled with volcanic scoria and operated as a sequencing batch reactor (SBR) for 66 batches over a period of 230 days. The reactor was inoculated with a mixed atrazine degrading bacterial population and given an atrazine growth medium for start-up, followed by batches of 20 mg/L atrazine in 5 mM phosphate buffer with no additional carbon. Complete (100%) atrazine biodegradation was observed in all batches. Until the 10th batch after start-up, traces of cyanuric acid were observed and 66–70% of the theoretical nitrogen available from atrazine was recovered in the form of ammonium. From the 10th batch onwards, 100% of the theoretical nitrogen available from atrazine was recovered in the form of nitrate with no trace of cyanuric acid observed. After reactor start-up the reactor contained 98% bacteria with the relative abundance of the dominant bacteria comprised of Xanthobacter (25.6%), Variovorax (23%), Ralstonia (12.2%), and Comamonas (8.1%). At the end of reactor operation, 70.8% bacteria and 29.2% archaea were found with Xanthobacter, Ralstonia and Variovorax (1.4%) in much smaller amounts, replaced mainly by Candidatus Nitrososphaera (29.2%), Phyllobacterium (5.5%) and Nitrospira (5.4%).