Increased replication rates of Chloroflexi that perform dissimilatory nitrogen reduction to ammonium leads to loss of anammox reactor performance

Anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) is an innovative, biological treatment process that removes reactive nitrogen from wastewater. While there is a substantial body of literature describing the performance of anammox bioreactors in response to various operational conditions and perturbations, few studies have resolved the metabolic roles of their core microbial community members. Here, we use metagenomics to study the microbial community within a laboratory-scale anammox bioreactor from seeding, through performance destabilizations, to stable-state.