Highly urbanized water microbiomes - sewage water inflow and effluent differ in their seasonal bacterial community profile

Waste water treatment is crucial to environmental hygiene in urbanized environments. However, the treatment process may concentrate chemicals, organic matter, and microorganisms including pathogens and multi-resistant bacteria which may potentially contaminate the environment via the effluent. Moreover, while waste water treatment plants (WWTP) may substantially reduce harmful bacteria, their effluent discharge into the environment is continuous and enables non-native, potentially detrimental microorganisms to colonize the environment. To better understand effects of WWTP on microbial dynamics in the urban environment, we conducted a seasonal study of the bacterial community of the inflow and effluent of a WWTP in Berlin, Germany, using full length 16S rRNA gene information obtained by PacBio® Sequel sequencing.