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Title: Isolation of a significant fraction of non-phototroph diversity from a desert Biological Soil Crust

Journal Article · · Frontiers in Microbiology
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [3];  [3];  [2];  [2];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [3];  [3];  [5]
  1. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Quantitative Microbial Ecology Group, Amsterdam (Netherlands)
  2. Arizona State Univ., Tucson, AZ (United States)
  3. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  4. Arizona State Univ., Tucson, AZ (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  5. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Univ. of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA (United States)

Biological Soil Crusts (BSCs) are organosedimentary assemblages comprised of microbes and minerals in topsoil of terrestrial environments. BSCs strongly impact soil quality in dryland ecosystems (e.g., soil structure and nutrient yields) due to pioneer species such as Microcoleus vaginatus; phototrophs that produce filaments that bind the soil together, and support an array of heterotrophic microorganisms. These microorganisms in turn contribute to soil stability and biogeochemistry of BSCs. Non cyanobacterial populations of BSCs are less well known than cyanobacterial populations. Therefore, we attempted to isolate a broad range of numerically significant and phylogenetically representative BSC aerobic heterotrophs. Combining simple pre treatments (hydration of BSCs under dark and light) and isolation strategies (media with varying nutrient availability and protection from oxidative stress) we recovered 402 bacterial and one fungal isolate in axenic culture, which comprised 116 phylotypes (at 97% 16S rRNA gene sequence homology), 115 bacterial and one fungal. Each medium enriched a mostly distinct subset of phylotypes, and cultivated phylotypes varied due to the BSC pre-treatment. The fraction of the total phylotype diversity isolated, weighted by relative abundance in the community, was determined by the overlap between isolate sequences and OTUs reconstructed from metagenome or metatranscriptome reads. Together, more than 8% of relative abundance of OTUs in the metagenome was represented by our isolates, a cultivation efficiency much larger than typically expected from most soils. We conclude that simple cultivation procedures combined with specific pre-treatment of samples afford a significant reduction in the culturability gap, enabling physiological and metabolic assays that rely on ecologically relevant axenic cultures.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1200858
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1407291
Journal Information:
Frontiers in Microbiology, Vol. 6; ISSN 1664-302X
Publisher:
Frontiers Research FoundationCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 42 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Biocrust morphology is linked to marked differences in microbial community composition journal October 2017
Exometabolite niche partitioning among sympatric soil bacteria journal September 2015
Dynamic root exudate chemistry and microbial substrate preferences drive patterns in rhizosphere microbial community assembly journal March 2018
Distinct interacting core taxa in co-occurrence networks enable discrimination of polymicrobial oral diseases with similar symptoms journal August 2016
Optimizing the Production of Nursery-Based Biological Soil Crusts for Restoration of Arid Land Soils journal May 2019
Status of the Archaeal and Bacterial Census: an Update journal May 2016
A “Cultural” Renaissance: Genomics Breathes New Life into an Old Craft journal May 2019
Spatial segregation of the biological soil crust microbiome around its foundational cyanobacterium, Microcoleus vaginatus, and the formation of a nitrogen-fixing cyanosphere journal April 2019
The Compositionally Distinct Cyanobacterial Biocrusts From Brazilian Savanna and Their Environmental Drivers of Community Diversity journal December 2019
The Ecology of Subaerial Biofilms in Dry and Inhospitable Terrestrial Environments journal September 2019
Exposure to predicted precipitation patterns decreases population size and alters community structure of cyanobacteria in biological soil crusts from the Chihuahuan Desert: Changing rainfall effects on soil cyanobacteria journal December 2017
After All, Only Millions? journal July 2016
The Cacti Microbiome: Interplay between Habitat-Filtering and Host-Specificity journal February 2016
Bioweathering Potential of Cultivable Fungi Associated with Semi-Arid Surface Microhabitats of Mayan Buildings journal February 2016