Nitrification mainly driven by ammonia-oxidizing bacteria and nitrite-oxidizing bacteria in an anammox-inoculated wastewater treatment system

Anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) process has been acknowledged as an environmentally friendly and time-saving technique capable of achieving efficient nitrogen removal. However, the community of nitrification process in anammox-inoculated wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) has not been elucidated. In this study, ammonia oxidation (AO) and nitrite oxidation (NO) rates were analyzed with the incubation of activated sludge from Xinfeng WWTPs (Taiwan, China), and the community composition of nitrification communities were investigated by high-throughput sequencing. Results showed that both AO and NO had strong activity in the activated sludge. The average rates of AO and NO in sample A were 6.51 µmol L(−1) h(−1) and 6.52 µmol L(−1) h(−1), respectively, while the rates in sample B were 14.48 µmol L(−1) h(−1) and 14.59 µmol L(−1) h(−1), respectively. The abundance of the nitrite-oxidizing bacteria (NOB) Nitrospira was 0.89–4.95 × 10(11) copies/g in both samples A and B, the abundance of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) was 1.01–9.74 × 10(9) copies/g. In contrast, the abundance of ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) was much lower than AOB, only with 1.28–1.53 × 10(5) copies/g in samples A and B. The AOA community was dominated by Nitrosotenuis, Nitrosocosmicus, and Nitrososphaera, while the AOB community mainly consisted of Nitrosomonas and Nitrosococcus. The dominant species of Nitrospira were Candidatus Nitrospira defluvii, Candidatus Nitrospira Ecomare2 and Nitrospira inopinata. In summary, the strong nitrification activity was mainly catalyzed by AOB and Nitrospira, maintaining high efficiency in nitrogen removal in the anammox-inoculated WWTPs by providing the substrates required for denitrification and anammox processes. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13568-021-01321-6.