Soil microbiome dataset from the University of Wisconsin Arlington and Lancaster agricultural research stations and cheese maker and vegetable processor wastewater land application sites

Cheese making and vegetable processing are trillion-dollar industries globally. However, they generate immense volumes of high nitrogen wastewater that must be processed safely and cost effectively. Land application systems are frequently used by rural medium and smaller processing facilities that lack ready access to wastewater resource recovery facilities. This study utilized soil microbial data to determine system differences leading to high denitrification rates observed in incubation studies in agricultural soil collected from University of Wisconsin Agricultural Research Stations (ARS), Arlington and Lancaster stations, compared to industry cheese making and vegetable processing land application water treatment facilities. It was hypothesized that decade long frequent treatment with facility wastewater would alter the microbial communities in the system soils, but this is not the case. No clear correlations were found between soil denitrification rates and biotic or abiotic system factors and the microbial communities observed in the industry systems are similar to the ARS soils under agricultural production and to literature reported denitrifying systems such as wetlands and wastewater resource recovery facilities. Knowing that land application system management does not alter the microbial biome will allow any management advances that increase denitrification efficiency in other denitrifying systems to be readily applied to industry wastewater land application facilities.

全球奶酪制造与蔬菜加工产业均属万亿美元级别的行业，但此类生产会产生大量高氮废水，需经安全且经济高效的处理。对于难以就近获取废水资源回收设施的农村中小型加工企业而言，土地处理系统是其常用的废水处置方式。本研究借助土壤微生物组数据，旨在明确相较于工业奶酪制造与蔬菜加工行业的土地处理型水处理设施，在威斯康星大学农业研究站（ARS，阿灵顿站与兰开斯特站）采集的农业土壤培养试验中观测到的高反硝化速率背后的系统差异。此前假设，长期频繁接受企业废水处理的系统土壤，其微生物群落结构会发生改变，但研究结果并非如此。研究未发现土壤反硝化速率与系统生物或非生物因子间存在明确关联；且工业设施系统中的微生物群落与农业生产下的ARS土壤、以及文献报道的湿地、废水资源回收设施等反硝化系统群落结构相似。明确土地处理系统的管理不会改变微生物群落这一结论，可将其他反硝化系统中提升反硝化效率的管理改进方案，快速推广应用至工业废水土地处理设施中。