Exploring the efficacy of metabarcoding and non-target screening for detecting treated wastewater

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

  • Guido Sieber
  • Felix Drees
  • Manan Shah
  • Tom L. Stach
  • Lotta Hohrenk-Danzouma
  • Christina Bock
  • Maryam Vosough
  • Mark Schumann
  • Bernd Sures
  • Alexander J. Probst
  • Torsten C. Schmidt
  • Daniela Beisser
  • Jens Boenigk

Wastewater treatment processes can eliminate many pollutants, yet remainder pollutants contain organic compounds and microorganisms released into ecosystems. These remainder pollutants have the potential to adversely impact downstream ecosystem processes, but their presence is currently not being monitored. This study was set out with the aim of investigating the effectiveness and sensitivity of non-target screening of chemical compounds, 18S V9 rRNA gene, and full-length 16S rRNA gene metabarcoding techniques for detecting treated wastewater in receiving waters. We aimed at assessing the impact of introducing 33 % treated wastewater into a triplicated large-scale mesocosm setup during a 10-day exposure period. Discharge of treated wastewater significantly altered the chemical signature as well as the microeukaryotic and prokaryotic diversity of the mesocosms. Non-target screening, 18S V9 rRNA gene, and full-length 16S rRNA gene metabarcoding detected these changes with significant covariation of the detected pattern between methods. The 18S V9 rRNA gene metabarcoding exhibited superior sensitivity immediately following the introduction of treated wastewater and remained one of the top-performing methods throughout the study. Full-length 16S rRNA gene metabarcoding demonstrated sensitivity only in the initial hour, but became insignificant thereafter. The non-target screening approach was effective throughout the experiment and in contrast to the metabarcoding methods the signal to noise ratio remained similar during the experiment resulting in an increasing relative strength of this method. Based on our findings, we conclude that all methods employed for monitoring environmental disturbances from various sources are suitable. The distinguishing factor of these methods is their ability to detect unknown pollutants and organisms, which sets them apart from previously utilized approaches and allows for a more comprehensive perspective. Given their diverse strengths, particularly in terms of temporal resolution, these methods are best suited as complementary approaches.

Original languageEnglish
Article number167457
JournalScience of the Total Environment
Volume903
Number of pages13
ISSN0048-9697
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 10.12.2023
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors

    Research areas

  • Metabarcoding, Monitoring, Non-target screening, Treated wastewater
  • Chemistry

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