Species coexistence in nitrifying chemostats: A model of microbial interactions

Abstract

In a previous study, the two nitrifying functions (ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB) or nitrite-oxidizing bacteria (NOB)) of a nitrification reactor-operated continuously over 525 days with varying inputs-were assigned using a mathematical modeling approach together with the monitoring of bacterial phylotypes. Based on these theoretical identifications, we develop here a chemostat model that does not explicitly include only the resources' dynamics (different forms of soluble nitrogen) but also explicitly takes into account microbial inter- and intra-species interactions for the four dominant phylotypes detected in the chemostat. A comparison of the models obtained with and without interactions has shown that such interactions permit the coexistence of two competing ammonium-oxidizing bacteria and two competing nitrite-oxidizing bacteria in competition for ammonium and nitrite, respectively. These interactions are analyzed and discussed.