bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.29.067207; this version posted April 30, 2020. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. Thiocyanate and organic carbon inputs drive convergent selection for specific autotrophic Afipia and Thiobacillus strains within complex microbiomes Robert J. Huddy1,2, Rohan Sachdeva3, Fadzai Kadzinga1,2, Rose Kantor4, Susan T.L. Harrison1,2 and Jillian F. Banfield3,4,5,6* 1The Center for Bioprocess Engineering Research, University of Cape Town, South Africa 2The Future Water Institute, University of Cape Town, South Africa 3The Innovative Genomics Institute at the University of California, Berkeley, California, USA 4The Department of Earth and Planetary Science, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA 5The Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA 6The University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia *Corresponding Author:
[email protected] Abstract Thiocyanate (SCN-) contamination threatens aquatic ecosystems and pollutes vital fresh water supplies. SCN- degrading microbial consortia are commercially deployed for remediation, but the impact of organic amendments on selection within SCN- degrading microbial communities has not been investigated. Here, we tested whether specific strains capable of degrading SCN- could be reproducibly selected for based on SCN- loading and the presence or absence of added organic carbon. Complex microbial communities derived from those used to treat SCN- contaminated water were exposed to systematically increased input SCN concentrations in molasses-amended and -unamended reactors and in reactors switched to unamended conditions after establishing the active SCN- degrading consortium.