title: Liquid serial dilution is inferior to solid media for isolation of cultures representative of the phylum-level diversity of soil bacteria.
abstract: Representatives of only four well-characterized bacterial phyla were isolated from a pasture soil by using liquid serial dilution culture. In contrast, members of Acidobacteria, Verrucomicrobia, and Gemmatimonadetes and of other poorly represented bacterial lineages were isolated in earlier experiments with solidified versions of the same media. We conclude that, contrary to expectation, liquid serial dilution culture is inferior to culturing on solid media for isolating representatives of many bacterial phyla from soil.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria 3010, Australia.
authors.forename: Liesbeth
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Schoenborn
authors.forename: Penelope S
authors.initials: PS
authors.lastname: Yates
authors.forename: Bronwyn E
authors.initials: BE
authors.lastname: Grinton
authors.forename: Philip
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Hugenholtz
authors.forename: Peter H
authors.initials: PH
authors.lastname: Janssen
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000254:growth & development / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D003470:Culture Media; D012988:Soil Microbiology
chemical_list: D003470:Culture Media