Microbial community composition reflects water usage and storage conditions in a city-wide study of non-sewered wastewater (fecal sludge)

作者：Stanley Bortse Sam, Savanna K. Smith, Robert Niederdorfer, Andreas Scheidegger, Barbara J. Ward, James Madalitso Tembo, Joel Kabika, David R. Johnson, Helmut Bürgmann, Eberhard Morgenroth, Linda Strande · 发表于：PLOS Water · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1371/journal.pwat.0000386 · 被引用次数：4 · 研究领域：Gut microbiota and health、Wastewater Treatment and Reuse、Wastewater Treatment and Nitrogen Removal

Nearly half (46%) the world’s population is now served by non-sewered sanitation. In urban areas of low- and middle-income countries, this translates to onsite storage of wastewater in tanks and pits until it can be collected and transported by road to treatment, which is commonly referred to as fecal sludge management. The microbial communities that develop during storage of this wastewater remain understudied, leaving practitioners and scientists to speculate on best management practices such as downstream treatment and climate mitigation measures. In this study, we collected samples from 135 randomly selected containments across the city of Lusaka, Zambia, and evaluated statistical relations of 16S rRNA gene sequence data to types and volume of wastewater going into containments, disturbances (i.e., emptying events), characteristics of accumulated wastewater during storage, and metrics of downstream treatment processes. At the phyla level, 80% of the identified microorganisms belonged to Firmicutes , Proteobacteria and Bacteroidota . Focusing in at the genera level, microbial diversity and composition were statistically related to volumes of water usage, properties of wastewater in containments (total organic carbon, total kjeldahl nitrogen, ammonium nitrogen, pH), and metrics of stabilization and dewatering performance. In Lusaka, a core community was identified with 104 of the 1,247 identified genera being present in >90% of the containments. In contrast, 936 genera w...