Phototrophic microbial consortium of a high pH, high alkalinity outdoor open raceway pond

In 2020 and 2021 we cultivated a microbial consortium dominated by a filamentous cyanobacterium of the Phormidium genus in an outdoor open raceway pond (ORP) (~ 3500 L) in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The consortium originated from the alkaline soda lakes of the Cariboo Plateau of British Columbia but had been maintained in the laboratory for approximately 6 years prior to these pilot plant campaigns. These amplicon sequences represent a time series of the consortium during the 2020 (110 days) and 2021 (80 days) studies.