Efficacy of the 'three ponds and two dams' ecological treatment system in purifying shrimp pond wastewater and mitigating antibiotic resistance

Bin Wei; Jie Fang; Dongxian Zhou; Xuelin Gu; Bingyao Sun; Xuehong Song

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2025.179928

Efficacy of the 'three ponds and two dams' ecological treatment system in purifying shrimp pond wastewater and mitigating antibiotic resistance

Sci Total Environ. 2025 Jun 26:992:179928. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2025.179928. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Bin Wei¹, Jie Fang², Dongxian Zhou³, Xuelin Gu¹, Bingyao Sun⁴, Xuehong Song⁵

Affiliations

¹ Aquaculture Technology Extension Station of Wuzhong District, Suzhou 215104, China.
² Aquaculture Technology Extension Station of Wuzhong District, Suzhou 215104, China; School of Life Sciences, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, China.
³ Division of Biosciences, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom.
⁴ School of Life Sciences, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, China.
⁵ School of Life Sciences, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, China. Electronic address: songxh@suda.edu.cn.

PMID: 40577892
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2025.179928

Abstract

Shrimp pond aquaculture, like fish pond culture, faces significant challenges such as water pollution and antibiotic resistance, driven by chemical overuse and untreated effluent discharge. This study evaluates the efficacy of an ecological treatment system in treating shrimp pond wastewater, focusing on water quality improvement, microbial community dynamics, phytoplankton composition, and antibiotic resistance gene (ARG) mitigation. Using adjacent river indicators as a reference, comparative analyses were conducted on phytoplankton density and biomass, key water quality parameters, and microbial parameters in shrimp culture and ecological ponds across key growth stages and the pond cleaning period. Bacterial 16S rRNA gene sequencing was employed to assess bacterial community diversity and composition in water and sediment. Additionally, the abundance of 12 ARGs was quantified, and their correlations with bacterial communities were analyzed. Results demonstrated that the ecological treatment system significantly improved water quality, with the ecological pond consistently exhibiting lower levels of key water quality parameters compared to the culture pond. Phytoplankton density and biomass were highest in the culture pond, while the ecological pond maintained intermediate levels, acting as an effective buffer. Microbial analysis revealed reduced bacterial and coliform counts in the ecological pond. ARG abundances were highest in the culture pond, whereas the ecological pond showed marked reductions. Dynamic correlations between ARGs and bacterial genera, such as Pseudomonas, were observed, highlighting the system's potential to mitigate antibiotic resistance. This study underscores the ecological treatment system's effectiveness in purifying shrimp pond wastewater, reducing microbial contamination, and providing critical insights for system optimization.

Keywords: Antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs); Ecological treatment system; Microbial community dynamics; Shrimp pond aquaculture; Water quality.