Association between algal productivity and phycosphere composition in an outdoor Chlorella sorokiniana reactor based on multiple longitudinal analyses Seth Steichen University of Arizona https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2267-7026 Song Gao Pacic Northwest National Laboratory Peter Waller University of Arizona Judith Brown (
[email protected] ) https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4669-8443 Research Keywords: 16S rRNA gene, benzalkonium chloride, biocide, Health Index, Melainabacteria, microalgal cultivation, microbiome, Vampirovibrionales Posted Date: January 24th, 2020 DOI: https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.2.21781/v1 License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Read Full License Version of Record: A version of this preprint was published at Microbial Biotechnology on May 25th, 2020. See the published version at https://doi.org/10.1111/1751-7915.13591. Page 1/25 Abstract Background Microalgae as a biofuel source are of great interest. The outdoor Regional Algal Feedstock Testbed (RAFT) was established to optimize algal biomass production in the U.S. sunbelt states. The phycosphere inhabitants, consisting in part of the bacterial community within algal cultures, are hypothesized to contribute to algal productivity. However, little is known about their identity or specic contributions. In this study the bacterial composition of the Chlorella sorokiniana phycosphere was determined over several production cycles in different growing seasons by 16S rRNA gene sequencing and identication using the SILVA database. Results The C. sorokiniana bacterial phycosphere was sampled during 41 RAFT testbed cycles in two consecutive growing seasons. Eight reactors were sampled twice daily to establish baseline community composition, determined by high-throughput sequencing of 16S ribosomal RNA amplicons.