Soil resources influence spatial patterns of denitrifying communities at scales compatible with land management.

ABSTRACT: Knowing spatial patterns of functional microbial guilds can increase our understanding of the relationships between microbial community ecology and ecosystem functions. Using geostatistical modeling to map spatial patterns, we explored the distribution of the community structure, size, and activity of one functional group in N cycling, the denitrifiers, in relation to 23 soil parameters over a 44-ha farm divided into one organic and one integrated crop production system. The denitrifiers were targeted by the nirS and nirK genes that encode the two mutually exclusive types of nitrite reductases, the cd(1) heme-type and copper reductases, respectively. The spatial pattern of the denitrification activity genes was reflected by the maps of the abundances of nir genes. For the community structu

SUBMITTER: Enwall K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2849242 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature