Mechanisms determining the fate of dispersed bacterial communities in new environments.

ABSTRACT: Recent work has shown that dispersal has an important role in shaping microbial communities. However, little is known about how dispersed bacteria cope with new environmental conditions and how they compete with local resident communities. To test this, we implemented two full-factorial transplant experiments with bacterial communities originating from two sources (freshwater or saline water), which were incubated, separately or in mixes, under both environmental conditions. Thus, we were able to separately test for the effects of the new environment with and without interactions with local communities. We determined community composition using 454-pyrosequencing of bacterial 16S rRNA to specifically target the active fraction of the communities, and measured several functional parameters.

SUBMITTER: Szekely AJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3526183 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature