Phototrophic microbial consortium of a high pH, high alkalinity outdoor tubular photobioreactor

In 2019 we inoculated an outdoor tubular photobioreactor (PBR) (1,150 L) in Calgary, Alberta with a microbial consortium dominated by a filamentous cyanobacterium of the Phormidium genus. The consortium originated from the alkaline soda lakes of the Cariboo Plateau of British Columbia but had been maintained in the laboratory for approximately 5 years prior to this study. These 16S and 18S rRNA amplicon sequences represent a time-series of that community over the 140-day pilot plant campaign.