Disturbance,starvation, and overfeeding stresses detected by microbial lipid biomarkers in high-solids high-yield methanogenic reactors

Summary Microbial biomass and community structure of methanogenic anaerobic biomass reactors can be quantitatively monitored by signature, lipid analysis. The eubacterial and eukaryotic polar lipid fatty acids and the methanogen polar lipid ethers are reliable measures of their respective biomasses. The pattern of polar lipid fatty acids yields information on the community structure and metabolic state of the eubacteria and eukaryotes. These biomarker methods were applied over a 2-day feeding cycle of a highly productive batch-fed high-solids anaerobic biomass reactor. It was sampled before feeding, 6 h after feeding (disturbed)., at maximum gas production (healthy, 24 h), and after feedstock utilization (starved, 48h). Relative to the healthy condition, the disturbance of feeding significantly decreased eubacterial biomass and the proportion of unsaturated fatty acids, and increased branched fatty acids and the eubacterial stress biomarker,trans/cis 16: 17. The starved condition was not significantly different from the healthy in biomass or proportions of fatty acids, but did show a significant increase in the proportion of the eubacterial stress biomarkertrans/cis 18: 17. This reactor was compared to a second of the same design which had been overfed and showed significantly less productivity. The overfed reactor had a significantly lower methanogenic biomass,iso-branched fatty acids, and higher eubacterial stress markers Cy17:0 andtrans/cis 18: 17 than the highly productive reactor.