Wastewater treatment plant upgrade induces the receiving river retaining bioavailable nitrogen sources

Currently, wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) upgrades have been implemented in various countries to improve the water quality of the receiving ecosystems and protect aquatic species from potential deleterious effects. The impact of WWTP upgrades on biological communities and functions in receiving waters is a fundamental issue that remains largely unaddressed, especially for microbial communities. Here, we selected two wastewater-dominant rivers in Beijing (China) as study sites, i.e., one river receiving water from an upgraded WWTP to explore the impacts of upgrade on aquatic ecosystems and another river receiving water from a previously upgraded WWTP as a reference. After a five-year investigation, we found that WWTP upgrade significantly decreased total organic nitrogen (N) in the receiving river. As a biological response, N-metabolism-related bacterioplankton are accordingly altered in composition and tend to intensively interact according to the network analysis. Metagenomic analysis based on the N-cycling genes and metagenomic-assembled genomes revealed that WWTP upgrade decreased the abundance of nitrifying bacteria but increased that of denitrifying and dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium (DNRA) bacteria in the receiving river, according to their marker gene abundances. After calculation of the ratios between DNRA and denitrifying bacteria and quantification of genes/bacteria related to ammonium cycling, we deduced the changes in N-metabolism-related bacteria are likely an attempt to provide enough bioavailable N for plankton growth as conservation of ammonium was enhanced in receiving river after WWTP upgrade.