Diversity and Functional Profile of Bacterial Communities from Municipal Landfill, South Africa

Phylogenetic and taxonomic diversity of microorganisms in municipal landfills has been widely reported. However, investigations of in situ substrate degradation and metabolic functions of landfill microorganisms, and how inherent Physico-chemical properties of landfills influence microbial community structure at different stages of landfill maturation are lacking. In this study, bacterial community structure and metabolic functional diversity were investigated in soil and waste samples collected at depths from municipal solid waste landfill sites aged 14 and 36 years using the MiSeq high-throughput sequencing method.