Unlocking the Potential of Bioindicators in Wastewater Treatment.

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Kenneth Dumack
• Subject Area: Hydrogeology, Hydrology, Limnology, Urban Water Management, Water Chemistry, Integrated Water Resources Management
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 556896378

Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are vital for maintaining environmental health, and extensive research has focused on prokaryotic microbial communities within them. Nevertheless, it is crucial not to underestimate the importance of microbial eukaryotes in wastewater, as they exert a significant influence on the wastewater microbiome. In 1999, the Bavarian State Office for Environment established the 'blue book' as a resource for WWTP operators. This resource employs microscopical techniques to determine the community composition of 'indicator species' for assessing the physicochemical parameters of bioreactors. Despite decades of diligent daily data collection across hundreds, if not thousands, of WWTPs, a comprehensive analysis of the wealth of data provided by the 'blue book' approach is still outstanding. Consequently, the potential utility of this extensive dataset remains largely untapped. Our objective is to amass thousands of observations from European WWTPs. With this data, we aim to elucidate the extent to which these bioindicators correlate with environmental parameters. We will compare the value of microscopically obtained bioindicator data with currently common metabarcoding. Furthermore, we will investigate to what extent microeukaryotic bioindicators explain and predict the abundance and community composition of harmful filamentous bacteria. Additionally, we will create and provide an extended trait database for microbial eukaryotes found in wastewater.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants