Manipulating the physical distance between cells during soil colonization reveals the importance of biotic interactions in microbial community assembly.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Microbial communities are of tremendous importance for ecosystem functioning and yet we know little about the ecological processes driving the assembly of these communities in the environment. Here, we used an unprecedented experimental approach based on the manipulation of physical distance between neighboring cells during soil colonization to determine the role of bacterial interactions in soil community assembly. We hypothesized that experimentally manipulating the physical distance between bacterial cells will modify the interaction strengths leading to differences in microbial community composition, with increasing distance between neighbors favoring poor competitors.

Results

We found significant differences in both bacterial community diversity, composition

SUBMITTER: Romdhane S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10953230 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature