Engineering Commons^™

Use Of 16s Rrna Gene Terminal Restriction Fragment Analysis To Assess The Impact Of Solids Retention Time On The Bacterial Diversity Of Activated Sludge, Pascal E. Saikaly, Peter George Stroot, Daniel B. Oerther

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) analysis of 16S rRNA genes was used to investigate the reproducibility and stability in the bacterial community structure of laboratory-scale sequencing batch bioreactors (SBR) and to assess the impact of solids retention time (SRT) on bacterial diversity. Two experiments were performed. In each experiment two sets of replicate SBRs were operated for a periods of three times the SRT. One set was operated at an SRT of 2 days and another set was operated at an SRT of 8 days. Samples for T-RFLP analysis were collected from the two sets of replicate reactors. HhaI, …