# Chlorella vulgaris and Its Phycosphere in Wastewater: Microalgae-Bacteria Interactions During Nutrient Removal

## TL;DR

This study explores how Chlorella vulgaris and its associated bacteria work together to remove nutrients from wastewater, improving biomass production and bioremediation.

## Contribution

The study reveals how bacterial communities in the phycosphere influence microalgal growth and nutrient removal from various liquid wastes.

## Key findings

- Chlorella vulgaris and its bacterial partners efficiently metabolize carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus in liquid wastes.
- Metagenomic analysis showed significant changes in bacterial community composition during cultivation.
- Reconstructed phycospheric bacteria genomes revealed functions like organic acid oxidation and vitamin B synthesis.

## Abstract

Microalgae-based bioenergy production is a promising field with regard to the wide variety of algal species and metabolic potential. The use of liquid wastes as nutrient clearly improves the sustainability of microalgal biofuel production. Microalgae and bacteria have an ecological inter-kingdom relationship. This microenvironment called phycosphere has a major role in the ecosystem productivity and can be utilized both in bioremediation and biomass production. However, knowledge on the effects of indigenous bacteria on microalgal growth and the characteristics of bacterial communities associated with microalgae are limited. In this study municipal, industrial and agricultural liquid waste derivatives were used as cultivation media. Chlorella vulgaris green microalgae and its bacterial partners efficiently metabolized the carbon, nitrogen and phosphorous content available in these wastes. The read-based metagenomics approach revealed a diverse microbial composition at the start point of cultivations in the different types of liquid wastes. The relative abundance of the observed taxa significantly changed over the cultivation period. The genome-centric reconstruction of phycospheric bacteria further explained the observed correlations between the taxonomic composition and biomass yield of the various waste-based biodegradation systems. Functional profile investigation of the reconstructed microbes revealed a variety of relevant biological processes like organic acid oxidation and vitamin B synthesis. Thus, liquid wastes were shown to serve as valuable resources of nutrients as well as of growth promoting bacteria enabling increased microalgal biomass production.