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Diel-scale temporal dynamics recorded for bacterial groups in Namib Desert soil.
- Source :
- Scientific Reports; 1/13/2017, p40189, 1p
- Publication Year :
- 2017
-
Abstract
- Microbes in hot desert soil partake in core ecosystem processes e.g., biogeochemical cycling of carbon. Nevertheless, there is still a fundamental lack of insights regarding short-term (i.e., over a 24-hour [diel] cycle) microbial responses to highly fluctuating microenvironmental parameters like temperature and humidity. To address this, we employed T-RFLP fingerprinting and 454 pyrosequencing of 16S rRNA-derived cDNA to characterize potentially active bacteria in Namib Desert soil over multiple diel cycles. Strikingly, we found that significant shifts in active bacterial groups could occur over a single 24-hour period. For instance, members of the predominant Actinobacteria phyla exhibited a significant reduction in relative activity from morning to night, whereas many Proteobacterial groups displayed an opposite trend. Contrary to our leading hypothesis, environmental parameters could only account for 10.5% of the recorded total variation. Potential biotic associations shown through co-occurrence networks indicated that non-random inter- and intra-phyla associations were 'time-of-day-dependent' which may constitute a key feature of this system. Notably, many cyanobacterial groups were positioned outside and/or between highly interconnected bacterial associations (modules); possibly acting as inter-module 'hubs' orchestrating interactions between important functional consortia. Overall, these results provide empirical evidence that bacterial communities in hot desert soils exhibit complex and diel-dependent inter-community associations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 20452322
- Database :
- Complementary Index
- Journal :
- Scientific Reports
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 120731040
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1038/srep40189