With regards to the query about other carbon sources usable by SRB in
AMD, my feelings are that several factors are involved that need to be
looked at. While SRB are present in AMD, their activity is strictly
regulated by the acidity and so some sort of buffering is absolutely
necessary unless acid tolerant SRb are discovered. The carbon sources
that you mention are large molecules that require extracellular digestion
and SRBs are known to predominantly utilise simpler smaller molecules
such as pyruvate, acetate and the like. AMD is not strictly an annaerobic
environment which is also a limitation to SRB's. While the idea of SRB's
utilising the abundant sulfate present in AMD is a good connection, there
are several more tricky problems that arise in carrying out this idea out.
Any one else have comments?
Dean Douglas
Univ of Guelph, Canada.
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