Comparative Analysis of Metagenomic (Amplicon and Shotgun) DNA Sequencing to Characterize Microbial Communities in Household On-Site Wastewater Treatment Systems

The performance of on-site wastewater treatment systems (OWTSs) can be improved by altering digester design and manipulating environmental variables that affect microbial community composition. Community composition potentially assessed using high-throughput DNA sequencing, but the two most common methods sequencing (16S shotgun sequencing) generally yield different taxonomic identification profiles perform differently according to sampled environment. To evaluate use these approaches in monitoring OWTS operation, we conducted a comparative parallel analysis both 16S rDNA controlled field study. Results indicate when examining microorganisms above 0.1% relative abundance, produced similar results terms individual sample species richness between-sample similarity. However, provided comparatively higher for bacterial communities with lower abundance OWTSs. In addition, resolved only 48 out 188 identified (using cutoff). Three key genera (Desulfomicrobium, Simplicispira, Phenylobacterium) anaerobic digestion processes were differentially abundant methods. These data provide overall digestor systems. provides significantly (p-value < 0.01) overall. Thus, more robust functional profile used optimization