Comparative metagenomics of biogas-producing microbial communities from production-scale biogas plants operating under wet or dry fermentation conditions

Yvonne Stolze, Martha Zakrzewski, Irena Maus, Felix Eikmeyer, Sebastian Jaenicke, Nils Rottmann, Clemens Siebner, Alfred Pühler, Andreas Schlüter

Decomposition of biomass for biogas production can be practiced under wet and dry fermentation conditions. In contrast to the dry fermentation technology, wet fermentation is characterized by a high liquid content and a relatively low total solid content. In this study, the composition and functional potential of a biogas-producing microbial community in an agricultural biogas reactor operating under wet fermentation conditions was analyzed by a metagenomic approach applying 454-pyrosequencing. The obtained metagenomic dataset and corresponding 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequences were compared to the previously sequenced comparable metagenome from a dry fermentation process, meeting explicitly identical boundary conditions regarding sample and community DNA preparation, sequencing technology, processing of sequence reads and data analyses by bioinformatics tools.