title: Linking microbial community structure, interactions and function in anaerobic digesters using new molecular techniques.
abstract: Over the last decade there has been a rapid development in culture-independent techniques for exploring microbial communities, which have led to new insights into their structure and function in both natural environments and engineered systems. This review focuses on some of the most important recent advances and their applications to the diverse microbial communities associated with anaerobic digestion. The use of these approaches in combination with complementary imaging techniques, chemical isotope analyses and detailed reactor performance measurements provides a new opportunity to develop a fundamental understanding of how microbial community dynamics, interactions and functionality influence digester efficiency and stability.
authors.affiliation: Advanced Water Management Center (AWMC), School of Chemical Engineering, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia; Australian Center for Ecogenomics (ACE), School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia.
authors.forename: Inka
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Vanwonterghem
authors.affiliation: Advanced Water Management Center (AWMC), School of Chemical Engineering, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia.
authors.forename: Paul D
authors.initials: PD
authors.lastname: Jensen
authors.affiliation: Advanced Water Management Center (AWMC), School of Chemical Engineering, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia.
authors.forename: Dang P
authors.initials: DP
authors.lastname: Ho
authors.affiliation: Advanced Water Management Center (AWMC), School of Chemical Engineering, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia.
authors.forename: Damien J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Batstone
authors.affiliation: Advanced Water Management Center (AWMC), School of Chemical Engineering, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia; Australian Center for Ecogenomics (ACE), School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia. Electronic address: g.tyson@uq.edu.au.
authors.forename: Gene W
authors.initials: GW
authors.lastname: Tyson
mesh_terms: D000693:Anaerobiosis; D019149:Bioreactors / Q000382:microbiology*; D017124:Conserved Sequence; D016680:Genome, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D053858:Metabolic Networks and Pathways / Q000235:genetics; D055432:Metabolomics; D056186:Metagenomics; D056265:Microbial Interactions / Q000235:genetics; D040901:Proteomics; D059467:Transcriptome