title: Spatial and temporal variability of bacterial communities within a combined sewer system.
abstract: This study describes the temporal and spatial variability of bacterial communities within a combined sewer system in England. Sampling was conducted over 9 months in a sewer system with intensive monitoring of hydraulic conditions. The bacterial communities were characterized by 16S rRNA gene-targeted terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis. These data were related to the hydraulic data as well as the sample type, location, and time. Temporal and spatial variation was observed between and within wastewater communities and biofilm communities. The bacterial communities in biofilm were distinctly different from the communities in wastewater and exhibited greater spatial variation, while the wastewater communities exhibited variability between different months of sampling. This study highlights the variation of bacterial communities between biofilm and wastewater, and has shown both spatial and temporal variations in bacterial communities in combined sewers. The temporal variation is of interest for in-sewer processes, for example, sewer odor generation, as field measurements for these processes are often carried out over short durations and may therefore not capture the influence of this temporal variation of the bacterial communities.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
authors.forename: Henriette Stokbro
authors.initials: HS
authors.lastname: Jensen
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou, China.
authors.forename: Raju
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sekar
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
authors.forename: Will J
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Shepherd
authors.affiliation: School of Science, RMIT University, Bundoora, Victoria, Australia.
authors.forename: Andrew M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Osborn
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
authors.forename: Simon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tait
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
authors.forename: Catherine A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Biggs
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics*; D018441:Biofilms; D004739:England; D064307:Microbiota / Q000235:genetics*; D012150:Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S / Q000235:genetics; D012722:Sewage / Q000382:microbiology*; D014871:Water Microbiology
chemical_list: D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S; D012722:Sewage
keywords: Bacteria; T-RFLP analysis; environmental biofilms; in-sewer processes; sewer systems; wastewater