DGGE profiles of 16S rcDNA (Fig. 4). The addition of phages did not promote any significant shift in bacterial ribotype diversity. The MDS analysis of the band patterns obtained from DGGE analysis of the
experiment with AS-A phage revealed the occurrence of two groups
(Fig. 5), one that included water samples with AS-A phage (T8-Phage
AS-A) and negative control with the preservative solution (TSB with
1% chloroform, T8-TSBCL) and the other group including control without incubation (T0) and water incubated without phage AS-A (T8).
Analysis of similarities (ANOSIM) suggested a moderated separation
of bacterial communities between water incubated with phage AS-A
and water incubated without phage AS-A (T8 vs T8-Phage) (R =
0.633). A separated but strongly overlapping groups was observed for
water incubated without phage in phage preservative solution (T8-TSBCL) and water incubated with phage AS-A in phage preservative solution (T8-Phage AS-A) (Table 4). Water samples without incubation
(T0) displayed a higher similarity, comparatively with water incubation
during 8 h (T8) (R = 0.148) (Table 4)