Bacterial community composition of divergent soil habitats in a polar desert.
FEMS Microbiol Ecol
; 89(2): 490-4, 2014 Aug.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-24579975
ABSTRACT
Edaphic factors such as pH, organic matter, and salinity are often the most significant drivers of diversity patterns in soil bacterial communities. Desert ecosystems in particular are model locations for examining such relationships as food web complexity is low and the soil environment is biogeochemically heterogeneous. Here, we present the findings from a 16S rRNA gene sequencing approach used to observe the differences in diversity and community composition among three divergent soil habitats of the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica. Results show that alpha diversity is significantly lowered in high pH soils, which contain higher proportions of the phyla Acidobacteria and Actinobacteria, while mesic soils with higher soil organic carbon (and ammonium) content contain high proportions of Nitrospira, a nitrite-oxidizing bacteria. Taxonomic community resolution also had a significant impact on our conclusions, as pH was the primary predictor of phylum-level diversity, while moisture was the most significant predictor of diversity at the genus level. Predictive power also increased with increasing taxonomic resolution, suggesting a potential increase in niche-based drivers of bacterial community composition at such levels.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Soil Microbiology
/
Actinobacteria
/
Acidobacteria
Type of study:
Prognostic_studies
Language:
En
Journal:
FEMS Microbiol Ecol
Year:
2014
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Estados Unidos