The 16S rRNA gene sequence data were analyzed using
RDPipeline (http://pyro.cme.msu.edu/). First, sequences
were analyzed by Chimera Check to remove chimeric sequences.
10 Analyses with RDPipeline involved 16S rRNA gene
sequence alignment (Aligner), 16S rRNA gene sequence
clustering (Complete Linkage Clustering), a-diversity index
(Shannon Index and Chao1 estimator), b-diversity comparison
(Jaccard & Sørensen distance matrix), rarefaction
curve, and phylogenetic analysis (RPD classifier).11 Pearson
correlation of sequence frequencies and PBDE remaining
percentage data involved the function PEARSON in Microsoft
Excel. For testing H0: r Z 0, bacterial classes and genera with p < 0.05 were considered PBDE degradation-associated
bacteria.