May microbial ecological baseline exist in continental groundwater?

ABSTRACT:

Background

Microbes constitute almost the entire biological community in subsurface groundwater and play an important role in ecological evolution and global biogeochemical cycles. Ecological baseline as a fundamental reference with less human interference has been investigated in surface ecosystems such as soils, rivers, and ocean, but the existence of groundwater microbial ecological baseline (GMEB) is still an open question so far.

Results

Based on high-throughput sequencing information derived from national monitoring of 733 newly constructed wells, we find that bacterial communities in pristine groundwater exhibit a significant lateral diversity gradient and gradually approach the topsoil microbial latitudinal diversity gradient with decreasing burial depth of phreatic

SUBMITTER: Zhong S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10355068 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature