Abstract
Maize forms the basis of Mexican food. As a result, approximately six million tons of corncob are produced each year, which represents an environmental issue, as well as a potential feedstock for biogas production. This research aimed to analyze the taxonomic and functional shift in the microbiome of the fermenters using a whole metagenome shotgun approach. Two strategies were used to understand the microbial community at the beginning and the end of anaerobic digestion: (i) phylogenetic analysis to infer the presence and coverage of clade-specific markers to assign taxonomy and (ii) the recovery of the individual genomes from the samples using the binning of the assembled scaffolds. The results showed that anaerobic digestion brought some noticeable changes and the main microbial community was composed of Corynebacterium variable, Desulfovibrio desulfuricans, Vibrio furnissii, Shewanella spp., Actinoplanes spp., Pseudoxanthomonas spp., Saccharomonospora azurea, Agromyces spp., Serinicoccus spp., Cellulomonas spp., Pseudonocardia spp., Rhodococcus rhodochrous, Sphingobacterium spp. Methanosarcina mazei, Methanoculleus hydrogenitrophicus, Methanosphaerula spp., Methanoregula spp., Methanosaeta spp. and Methanospirillum spp. This study provides evidence of the drastic change in the microbial community structure in a short time and the functional strategy that the most representative microorganisms of the consortia used to carry out the process.
Highlights
IntroductionThe use of fossil fuels has negative impacts, such as releases of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide gases into the atmosphere [1]
Fossil fuels have played an essential role in the development of the world’s economies.the use of fossil fuels has negative impacts, such as releases of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide gases into the atmosphere [1]
The hydrolysate has a higher concentration of total sugars ~158 g/L compared to the levels obtained using acid or enzymatic pre-treatments, which reached around 20 and 120 g/L, respectively [23,44]
Summary
The use of fossil fuels has negative impacts, such as releases of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide gases into the atmosphere [1]. All of these are harmful gases, responsible for climate change induced by global warming [2]. The production of biogas from the biomass of wastewater, peels, or grains and starch crops, such as corncob is a cost-effective process to generate energy and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions [8]. In order to improve biogas production, biomass is treated with several pre-treatment methods that can be chemical, physical, or biological [11,12,13]. Due to promising results in the increase in the hemicellulose fraction from corncob and enhanced biogas production [15], it is important to understand the microbial community involved in the process in order to improve our control and management of the process
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