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Updated: Jan 11, 2026
A Novel Bioreactor for High Density Cultivation of Diverse Microbial Communities
Published on: December 25, 2015
Who calls granules "home"? Domain-spanning meta-analysis charting microbial ecosystems underlying aerobic granular
Leandro Di Gloria1, Tommaso Lotti2, Mark Cm van Loosdrecht3
1Department of Experimental and Clinical Biomedical Sciences, University of Florence, Florence, Italy.
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The theatre of activity of complex microbial communities underpins the Aerobic Granular Sludge (AGS) systems, resulting in efficient wastewater treatment. Here, we present the first meta-analysis of DNA sequencing data from both published and newly generated AGS samples, aiming to define the "core microbiota" of AGS reactors, consisting of bacteria, archaea, eukaryotes and DNA viruses consistently featured and shared across different scales and operational settings. Briefly, the results indicated that a sequencing depth of at least 10 GB is required to profile the majority of the AGS community, revealed the core taxa, detected the recurrent presence of the uncultured genus ADurb.Bin028 in full-scale reactors and identified Rotaria and Diploscapter, as well as the sessile ciliates Stentor and Thuricola, as the most abundant eukaryotes in AGS. In conclusion, this work provided a taxonomic overview of AGS' common microbes and addressed potential technical caveats, aiming to establish a reference for future studies.
