Amplification of 16S rRNA genes for cloning purposes was carried out as described earlier [45] by using the bacterial primers 27F (5-AGAGTTTGATCMTGGCTCAG-3) and 518R (5-ATTACCGCGGCTGCTGG-3), while for T-RFLP purposes the PCR reaction was carried out by using the same PCR primers, with the
exception that the forward primer was fluorescently labeled (VIC).