Antibiotics usage is a double-edged sword in the production, promotion, and environmental aggravation of aquaculture systems. In this study, the effects of sulfadiazine addition on algal-bacterial-based aquaponic (AA) systems were thoroughly investigated. Results showed that sulfadiazine addition increased the nitrogen (N) and carbon (C) recovery of AA systems by 1.3 times and 2.9 times, respectively.
Meanwhile, the global warming potential was increased by 63% due to aggravated nitrous oxide (N2O) emission. This was mainly because sulfadiazine increased the abundance of nirS genes and decreased the abundance of nosZ genes, which subsequently led to higher N2O accumulation.
Furthermore, resistance gene (sul-1, sul-2, and intI-1) abundance in the treatment group was an order higher than that of the control group, which would give rise to the environmental risk for agroecological systems. Key Points • Sulfadiazine addition increased NUE at the expense of aggravated GHG emissions. • Sulfadiazine disrupted the balance between the abundance of nirS and nosZ genes. • Sulfadiazine addition increased the resistance gene abundance of AA systems.
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Ji, Mingde & Gao, Hang & Diao, Lingling & Zhang, Jian & Liang, Shuang & Hu, Zhen. (2022). Environmental impacts of antibiotics addition to algal-bacterial-based aquaponic system. Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology. 1-10. 10.1007/s00253-022-11944-9.