Microbial Insights

It is important to understand that microbial communities are a mixture of different types of bacteria (e.g. aerobes, sulfate reducers, methanogens, etc) with the abundance of each group behaving like a seesaw, i.e. as the population of one group increases, another is likely decreasing, mostly due to competition for available resources.  The PLFA profile of a sample provides a “fingerprint” of the microbial community, showing relative proportions of the specific bacterial types at the time of sampling. This is a great tool for detecting shifts within the community over time and also to evaluate similarities/differences between sampling locations. It is important to note that PLFA analysis of community composition analyzes the microbes directly, not just secondary breakdown products. So this provides direct evidence of how the entire microbial community is responding to the treatment.