Floating Treatment Wetlands Receiving Antibiotic Mixtures

Significance:

• Exposure to specific antibiotic in livestock manure and wastewater may influence the population structure of denitrifying bacteria communities and activity of microbial denitrification in soils, sediments and adjacent wetland treatment systems.

Objective:

• Improve our understanding of the cumulative effect of nitrification inhibitors and veterinary antibiotics on nitrogen transformation in wetlands.

Hypothesis:

• Antibiotics and nitrification inhibitors will limit denitrification occurrence in wetlands

Preliminary Conclusions:

• Initial experiments exhibit antibiotics added to wetland soils enhance denitrification, while nitrification inhibitors limit denitrification.

Funded: USDA-NIFA

Publication: In Prep

Graduate Student: Matthew Russell