Horizon-specific bacterial community composition of German grassland soils, as revealed by pyrosequencing-based analysis of 16S rRNA genes.
The diversity of bacteria in soil is enormous, and soil bacterial communities can vary greatly in structure. Here, we employed a pyrosequencing-based analysis of the V2-V3 16S rRNA gene region to characterize the overall and horizon-specific (A and B horizons) bacterial community compositions in nine grassland soils, which covered three different land use types. The entire data set comprised 752,838 sequences, 600,544 of which could be classified below the domain level. The average number of sequences per horizon was 41,824. The dominant taxonomic groups present in all samples and horizons were the Acidobacteria, Betaproteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Gammaproteobacteria, Alphaproteobacteria, Deltaproteobacteria, Chloroflexi, Firmicutes, and Bacteroidetes. Despite these overarching dominant taxa, the abundance, diversity, and composition of bacterial communities were horizon specific. In almost all cases, the estimated bacterial diversity (H') was higher in the A horizons than in the corresponding B horizons. In addition, the H' was positively correlated with the organic carbon content, the total nitrogen content, and the C-to-N ratio, which decreased with soil depth. It appeared that lower land use intensity results in higher bacterial diversity. The majority of sequences affiliated with the Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Cyanobacteria, Fibrobacteres, Firmicutes, Spirochaetes, Verrucomicrobia, Alphaproteobacteria, Betaproteobacteria, and Gammaproteobacteria were derived from A horizons, whereas the majority of the sequences related to Acidobacteria, Chloroflexi, Gemmatimonadetes, Nitrospira, TM7, and WS3 originated from B horizons. The distribution of some bacterial phylogenetic groups and subgroups in the different horizons correlated with soil properties such as organic carbon content, total nitrogen content, or microbial biomass.
Will
Christiane
C
Department of Genomic and Applied Microbiology and Göttingen Genomics Laboratory, Institute of Microbiology and Genetics, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Grisebachstr. 8, D-37077 Göttingen, Germany.
Thürmer
Andrea
A
Wollherr
Antje
A
Nacke
Heiko
H
Herold
Nadine
N
Schrumpf
Marion
M
Gutknecht
Jessica
J
Wubet
Tesfaye
T
Buscot
François
F
Daniel
Rolf
R
D001419:Bacteria / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics*; D044822:Biodiversity; D002244:Carbon / Q000032:analysis; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D004275:DNA, Ribosomal / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D005858:Germany; D054892:Metagenome; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009584:Nitrogen / Q000032:analysis; D010802:Phylogeny; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S / Q000235:genetics; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D012987:Soil / Q000032:analysis; D012988:Soil Microbiology
D004269:DNA, Bacterial; D004275:DNA, Ribosomal; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S; D012987:Soil; D002244:Carbon; D009584:Nitrogen