ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE-PROCESSES & IMPACTS, cilt.15, sa.2, ss.494-502, 2013 (SCI-Expanded)
Microbial community dynamics and the overall system performance of a real scale anaerobic wastewater treatment plant treating sugar industry wastewater were studied. Dominant bacterial and archaeal communities were monitored by 16S rRNA gene targeted PCR amplification and single strand conformation polymorphism analysis (SSCP). Chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiency and operational parameters such as pH, temperature, alkalinity, volatile fatty acids in the methanogenic reactor remained within respective optimal ranges. All bacterial profiles in acidogenic and methanogenic reactors and in the lamella separator presented complex patterns; and the bacterial diversity, measured as SSCP profile richness and structure, was quite chaotic. In contrast to the results obtained for the bacterial community, archaeal 16S rDNA patterns in acidogenic and methanogenic reactors and the lamella separator remained relatively stable over the whole operation period of the anaerobic wastewater treatment plant. Evaluation of microbial community dynamics and overall system performance using the Mantel test revealed that there was no correlation between the dynamics of the microbial communities and the abiotic parameters.