Applying ecological network theory on microbial big-data to improve wastewater treatment efficiency
- Supervisors: Dr Ozge Eyice (primary) and Dr Pavel Kratina (secondary)
- Funding: Queen Mary Principal's Studentship
- Deadline: 31st March 2022
The folllowing fully-funded PhD studentship is available in the School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences with an expected start date of September2022.
Project description
Activated sludge (AS) systems for wastewater treatment is the world’s most widely used biotechnological process. There is a strong interest in improving their environmental sustainability due to their high energy consumption. The AS systems include hyper-diverse communities of bacteria and their protozoan predators. While there is a wealth of research showing that the efficiency of AS systems critically depends on the diversity and function of bacteria, we know almost nothing about the interaction between protozoa and bacteria, and its effect on the efficiency of AS systems.
We recently showed that protozoan predation had strong effects on the bacterial diversity in AS and also on the wastewater treatment efficiency. Particularly, the nitrogen removal efficiency was significantly compromised at low predation pressure. This PhD project builds on our initial study and aims to establish the critical interaction links between bacteria and protozoa in AS systems, and examine how the dynamics of these communities affect the overall treatment efficiency. We will operate continuous lab-scale AS reactors under different operational conditions and generate terabytes of microbial diversity data via next-generation sequencing. We will use ecological network approaches to unravel the complex relationship underlying this wealth of data to determine the effect of protozoan predation of bacteria on the efficiency of AS systems and define operational conditions that would maximise the treatment efficiency. We will also test these newly defined conditions using our lab-scale reactors with particular focus on nitrogen removal from wastewater. This study will inform the protozoan predation-bacteria relationship in AS systems and provide a tool for managing AS system efficiency at microorganismal level.
Funding
This studentship is funded by QMUL. It will cover tuition fees, and provide an annual tax-free maintenance allowance for 3 years at the Research Council rate (£17,609 in 2021/22).
The project is open to UK and international students. The higher fees for international students (including EU) may be covered for up to 2 candidates applying for the Queen Mary Principal's PhD Studentships: Environment, Biodiversity and Genomics.
Eligibility and applying
Applications are invited from candidates with or expecting to receive a first or upper-second class honours degree in Biological Sciences, Environmental Sciences or in a relevant area. A masters degree is desirable, but not essential. Experience in using molecular biology methods, analytical and modelling tools is highly desirable.
Applicants from outside of the UK are required to provide evidence of their English language ability. Please see our English language requirements page for details.
Informal enquiries about the project can be sent to Dr Ozge Eyice (o.eyice@qmul.ac.uk). Formal applications must be submitted through our online form by the stated deadline.
The School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences is committed to promoting diversity in science; we have been awarded an Athena Swan Silver Award. We positively welcome applications from underrepresented groups.
http://hr.qmul.ac.uk/equality/
https://www.qmul.ac.uk/sbbs/about-us/athenaswan/