Essential Site Maintenance: Authorea-powered sites will be updated circa 15:00-17:00 Eastern on Tuesday 5 November.
There should be no interruption to normal services, but please contact us at [email protected] in case you face any issues.

loading page

Unmasking photogranulation in decreasing glacial albedo and net autotrophic wastewater treatment
  • Chul Park,
  • Nozomu Takeuchi
Chul Park
University of Massachusetts Amherst

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

Author Profile
Nozomu Takeuchi
Chiba University
Author Profile

Abstract

In both natural and built environments, microbes on occasions manifest in spherical aggregates instead of solid-affixed biofilms. These microbial aggregates are conventionally referred to as granules. Cryoconites are mineral rich granules that appear on glacier surfaces and are linked with expanding surface darkening, thus decreasing albedo, and enhanced melt. The oxygenic photogranules (OPGs) are organic rich granules that grow in wastewater with photosynthetic aeration and present potential for net autotrophic wastewater treatment in a compact system. Despite obvious differences inherent in the two, cryoconite and OPG pose striking resemblance. In both, the order Oscillatoriales in Cyanobacteria envelope inner materials and develop dense spheroidal aggregates. We explore the mechanism of photogranulation on account of high similarity between cryoconites and OPGs. We contend that there is no universal external cause for photogranulation. However, cryoconites and OPGs, as well as their intra variations, which are all are under different stress fields, are the outcome of universal physiological processes of the Oscillatoriales interfacing goldilocks interactions of stresses, which select for their manifestation as granules. Finding the rules of photogranulation may enhance engineering of glacier and wastewater systems to manipulate their ecosystem impacts.
Nov 2021Published in Environmental Microbiology volume 23 issue 11 on pages 6391-6404. 10.1111/1462-2920.15780