PLFA profiles of drinking water biofilters with different acetate and glucose loadings.

The biofilters fed with acetate or glucose and their phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) profiles were investigated to observe the impact of organic matter concentrations on the microbial community structure in the drinking water production system. PLFA markers for bacteria were predominant in all of the biofilters and made up over half of the total PLFA content. PLFA diversity was compared and the biofilters fed with glucose had higher diversity. The Shannon-Wiener (or sometimes known as just Shannon diversity index) indices in the biofilters fed with acetate were from 0.68 to 0.97, while the indices in the biofilters fed with glucose were from 0.95 to 1.25. Principle components analysis showed that carbon sources and media depth were responsible for 68 and 17% of the total PLFA variance, respectively. The results indicated that PLFA analysis could be useful in illustrating microbial community structure in drinking water bioreactors, and microbial community structure was impacted by carbon substrates.