Diversity: bromeliad vs soil
The study of vicinal habitats can provide a useful insight about the communicability between them. This research investigated an aquatic and a terrestrial habitat in the Atlantic Forest in Brazil. In a preserved area, bromeliad water tanks (BWT) and adjacent soil were unprecedently assessed regarding their community compositions. Specific regions of the 16S and 18S DNA were used employing metabarcoding approach to profile the community of unicellular eukaryotes, prokaryotes, fungi and metazoans accordingly. Our findings matched previous descriptions endorsing the distinct nature of both habitats. Unicellular eukaryotes showed Alveolata Supergroup as the most prevalent in BWT, whereas Rizharia Supergroup was in soil. Prokaryotes were prevalently represented by Proteobacteria phylum throughout the sampled habitats. Fungi revealed more uniform community compositions at different sites, showing Ascomycota division as the most prevalent in all samples. Metazoan representativeness showed variation among prevalent phyla at different sites, and their presence in BWT might indicate their use of such valuable hydric resource in a forested area. Our findings denoted the importance for biodiversity bromeliads have both for the exclusive organisms it hosts compared to soil, and for the significant common share of organisms observed in our results.