Understanding the Dependence of Micropollutant Biotransformation Rates on Short-Term Temperature Shifts

Temperature is a key factor that influences chemical biotransformation potential and rates, on which exposure and fate models rely to predict the environmental (micro)pollutant fate. Arrhenius-based models are currently implemented in environmental exposure assessment to adapt biotransformation rates to actual temperatures, assuming validity in the 0–30 °C range. However, evidence on how temperature shifts affect the physicochemical and microbial features in biological systems is scarce, questioning the validity of the existing modeling approaches. In this work, laboratory-scale batch assays were designed to investigate how a mixed microbial community responds to short-term temperature shifts, and how this impacts its ability to biotransform a range of structurally diverse micropollutants. Our results revealed three distinct kinetic responses at temperatures above 20 °C, mostly deviating from the classic Arrhenius-type behavior. Micropollutants with similar temperature responses appeared to undergo mostly similar initial biotransformation reactions, with substitution-type reactions maintaining Arrhenius-type behavior up to higher temperatures than oxidation-type reactions. Above 20 °C, the microbial community also showed marked shifts in both composition and activity, which mostly correlated with the observed deviations from Arrhenius-type behavior, with compositional changes becoming a more relevant factor in biotransformations catalyzed by more specific enzymes (e.g., oxidation reactions). Our findings underline the need to re-examine and further develop current environmental fate models by integrating biological aspects, to improve accuracy in predicting the environmental fate of micropollutants.