Effects of operational disturbance and subsequent recovery process on microbial community during a pilot-scale anaerobic co-digestion

Abstract This study investigated changes in microbial community structure and composition in response to operational disturbance and subsequent process recovery by inoculum addition. Amplicon sequencing of 16S rRNA and mcrA marker genes on the Illumina Miseq platform was used for microbial community analysis. The results show that imbalance among core microbial groups caused volatile fatty acid accumulation and subsequent deteriorated biogas production (decreased by 45% of daily volume) and methane content ( 57% of the total abundance) and reduction of acetogenic and methanogenic microbes (they accounted for