Sewage sludge stabilization methods alter soil microbes

We investigated how the stabilization process of sewage sludge determines its microbial communiy structure, and how this is reflected in the soil microbial community structure after land application. We pyrosequenced two phylogenetic markers (16S and 18S rRNA genes) to analyse the community structure of prokaryotes (bacteria+archaea) and fungi in two types of sewage sludge that had been produced under the same conditions but stabilized either through an autothermal thermophilic aerobic digestion (ATAD sludge) or a mesophilic anaerobic digestion (MAD sludge). We sequenced the same markers in agricultural soils either unamended (control soil), mineral fertilized (min fertil soil), amended with ATAD sludge (ATAD soil) or amended with MAD slduge (MAD soil). Five replicates were used in all cases. One representative sequence of each OTU is provided.