Extracellular hydrolytic potential drives microbiome shifts during anaerobic co-digestion of sewage sludge and food waste

Abstract

Bacterial community structure and dynamics in anaerobic digesters are primarily influenced by feedstock composition. It is therefore important to unveil microbial traits that explain microbiome variations in response to substrate changes. Here, gene and genome-centric metagenomics were used to examine microbiome dynamics in four laboratory-scale reactors, in which sewage sludge was co-digested with increasing amounts of food waste. A co-occurrence network revealed microbiome shifts in response to changes in substrate composition and concentration. Food waste concentration correlated with extracellular enzymes and metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) involved in the degradation of complex carbohydrates commonly found in fruits and plant cell walls as well as with the abundance of hydrolytic MAGs. A key role was attributed to Proteiniphillum for being the only bacteria that encoded the complete pectin degradation pathway. These results suggest that changes of feedstock composition establish new microbial niches for bacteria with the capacity to degrade newly added substrates.