To understand the indigenous microbial community structure
in PMFCs and their interactions with plants, we constructed a
PMFC using a typical constructed wetland plant C. indica, which
has been known effective in nutrients and heavy metals removal
from wastewater (Calheiros et al., 2007; Yadav et al., 2010). To
mimic real-world condition, we operated the system under natural
illumination without adding any external carbon source, nutrient,
or buffer media to the system. The anode was inoculated with
the original sediment in which the plant grew without introducing
exogenous microbes. In addition to characterize power generation,
we examined both bacterial and archaeal community structures
using high throughput pyrosequencing and clone library,
respectively.