Effects of plant biomass, plant diversity, and water content on bacterial communities in soil lysimeters: implications for the determinants of bacterial diversity.

ABSTRACT: Soils may comprise tens of thousands to millions of bacterial species. It is still unclear whether this high level of diversity is governed by functional redundancy or by a multitude of ecological niches. In order to address this question, we analyzed the reproducibility of bacterial community composition after different experimental manipulations. Soil lysimeters were planted with four different types of plant communities, and the water content was adjusted. Group-specific phylogenetic fingerprinting by PCR-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis revealed clear differences in the composition of Alphaproteobacteria, Betaproteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Chloroflexi, Planctomycetes, and Verrucomicrobia populations in soils without plants compared to that of populations in planted soils, wherea

SUBMITTER: Zul D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2074975 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature