Prediction, enrichment and isolation identify a responsive, competitive community of cellulolytic microorganisms from a municipal landfill.

Landfills are engineered, heterogeneously contaminated sites containing large reservoirs of paper waste. Cellulose degradation is an important process within landfill microbial ecology, and these anoxic, saturated environments are prime locations for discovery of cellulases that may offer improvements on industrial cellulose degradation efforts. We sampled leachate from three locations within a municipal landfill, a leachate collection cistern, and groundwater from an adjacent aquifer to identify cellulolytic populations and their associated cellulases. Metagenomic sequencing identified wide-spread and taxonomically diverse cellulolytic potential, with a notable scarcity of predicted exocellulases. 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing detected nine landfill microorganisms enriched in a customized leachate medium amended with microcrystalline cellulose or common paper stocks. Paper-enrichment cultures showed competition dynamics in response to the specific composition (lignin: hemi-cellulose: cellulose) of the different paper stocks. From leachate biomass, four novel cellulolytic bacteria were isolated, including two with the capacity for cellulolysis at industrially relevant temperatures. None of the isolates demonstrated exocellulase activity, consistent with the metagenome-based predictions. However, there was very little overlap between metagenome-derived predicted cellulolytic organisms, organisms enriched on paper sources, or the isolates, suggesting the landfill cellulolytic community is at low abundance but able to rapidly respond to introduced substrates.