Resistant ammonia-oxidizing archaea endure, but adapting ammonia-oxidizing bacteria thrive in boreal lake sediments receiving nutrient-rich effluents

Abstract

Climate change along with anthropogenic activities changes biogeochemical conditions in lake ecosystems, modifying the sediment microbial communities. Wastewater effluents introduce nutrients and organic material but also novel microbes to lake ecosystems, simulating forthcoming increases in catchment loadings. In this work, we first used 16s rRNA gene sequencing to study how the overall sediment microbial community responds to wastewater in six boreal lakes. To examine forthcoming changes in the lake biogeochemistry, we focused on the ammonia‐oxidizing archaea (AOA) and bacteria (AOB), and examined their functional and compositional community response to wastewater. Although we found the least diverse and least resistant prokaryotic communities from the most wastewater‐influenced sediments, the community changed fast toward the natural composition with the diminishing influence of wastewater. Each lake hosted a unique resistant AOA community, while AOB communities were adapting, responding to environmental conditions as well as receiving new members from WWTPs. In general, AOB dominated in numbers in wastewater‐influenced sediments, while the ratio between AOA and AOB increased when moving toward pristine conditions. Our results suggest that although future climate‐change‐driven increases in nutrient loading and microbial migration might significantly disrupt lake sediment microbiomes, they can promote nitrification through adapting and abundant AOB communities.