Dataset on microbial community structure in response to microalgal cultivation in dairy wastewater

This data article describes a comprehensive dataset investigating the dynamics between microalgae, bacteria, and pollutant removal in dairy wastewater treatment. Data was collected from a 12-day laboratory-scale experiment employing three distinct cultivation systems: monoculture, co-culture, and sequential culture of four algal/cyanobacterial strains (Chlorella sorokiniana, Euglena gracilis, Synechocystis sp., and Desertifilum tharense). The generated dataset includes high-frequency measurements of water quality parameters (COD, NH₄ ⁺-N, TN, TP), algal physiological data (biomass production, total chlorophyll, biochemical compositions like proteins, lipids, and polysaccharides), and 16S rRNA gene sequencing data of the associated bacterial communities, which were fractionated into free-living and tightly bound phycosphere populations. The reuse potential of this data is significant. It provides a detailed profile of microbial community assembly driven by different cultivation strategies and environmental factors, offering a benchmark for future ecological studies in engineered systems. Researchers in the fields of wastewater biotechnology, microbial ecology, and synthetic ecology can reuse this data to validate microbial interaction models, optimize consortia design for bioremediation, and inform life-cycle assessments of algal-based treatment processes. The dataset generated in this study is publicly available in the NCBI BioProject repository under the accession number [PRJNA1265442].