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PCR–DGGE Analysis on Microbial Community Structure of Rural Household Biogas Digesters in Qinghai Plateau

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Abstract

To investigate contribution of environmental factor(s) to microbial community structure(s) involved in rural household biogas fermentation at Qinghai Plateau, we collected slurry samples from 15 digesters, with low-temperature working conditions (11.1–15.7 °C) and evenly distributed at three counties (Datong, Huangyuan, and Ledu) with cold plateau climate, to perform polymerase chain reaction–denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (PCR–DGGE) and further sequencing. The bacterial communities in the total 15 digesters were classified into 38 genera with Mangroviflexus (12.1%) as the first dominant, and the archaeal communities into ten genera with Methanogenium (38.5%) as the most dominant. For each county, the digesters with higher biogas production, designated as HP digesters, exclusively had 1.6–3.1 °C higher fermentation temperature and the unique bacterial structure composition related, i.e., unclassified Clostridiales for all the HP digesters and unclassified Marinilabiliaceae and Proteiniclasticum for Ledu HP digesters. Regarding archaeal structure composition, Methanogenium exhibited significantly higher abundances at all the HP digesters and Thermogymnomonas was the unique species only identified at Ledu HP digesters with higher-temperature conditions. Redundancy analysis also confirmed the most important contribution of temperature to the microbial community structures investigated. This report emphasized the correlation between temperature and specific microbial community structure(s) that would benefit biogas production of rural household digesters at Qinghai Plateau.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31560039), the Applied Basic Research Program of Qinghai Province (2015-ZJ-730), the Natural Science Foundation of Qinghai Province (2015-ZJ-929Q), and Qinghai Special Project for Key Science and Technology (2016-NK-A8).

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  1. Rui Han and Yongze Yuan have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hubei Key Laboratory of Genetic Regulation and Integrative Biology, School of Life Sciences, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, 430079, Hubei, China

    Rui Han, Yongze Yuan, Qianwen Cao & Deli Liu

  2. Qinghai Key Laboratory of Vegetable Genetics and Physiology, Academy of Agriculture and Forestry, Qinghai University, Xining, 810016, Qinghai, China

    Rui Han, Quanhui Li & Laisheng Chen

  3. Research Center of Basic Medical Sciences, Qinghai University Medical College, Xining, 810006, Qinghai, China

    Derui Zhu

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  1. Rui Han
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Han, R., Yuan, Y., Cao, Q. et al. PCR–DGGE Analysis on Microbial Community Structure of Rural Household Biogas Digesters in Qinghai Plateau. Curr Microbiol 75, 541–549 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-017-1414-8

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