The succession of microbial community in the organic rich fish-farm sediment during bioremediation by introducing artificially mass-cultured colonies of a small polychaete, Capitella sp. I

We monitored seasonal changes of the abundance and composition of microorganisms in the fish-farm sediment in Kusuura Bay, Amakusa, Japan, using the quinone profiling technique, during bioremediation by introducing cultured colonies of polychaete, Capitella sp. I. In November 2004, approximately 9.2 million cultured worms were transferred to the fish-farm sediment, which increased rapidly, and reached 458.5 gWW/m2 (528,000 indiv./m2) in March 2005. During this fast-increasing period of Capitella, the microbial quinone content of the surface sediment (0–2 cm) also increased markedly, and reached 237 μmol/m2 in January 2005, although the water temperature decreased to the lowest levels in the year. Particularly, the mole fraction of ubiquinone-10 in total quinones in the sediment, indicating the presence of α subclass of Proteobacteria, increased by 9.3%. These facts suggest that the bacterial growth was enhanced markedly by the biological activities of worms in the sediment, and the bacteria played an important role in the decomposition of the organic matter in the sediment.