Factors Controlling Soil Microbial Biomass and Bacterial Diversity and Community Composition in a Cold Desert Ecosystem: Role of Geographic Scale.

ABSTRACT: Understanding controls over the distribution of soil bacteria is a fundamental step toward describing soil ecosystems, understanding their functional capabilities, and predicting their responses to environmental change. This study investigated the controls on the biomass, species richness, and community structure and composition of soil bacterial communities in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica, at local and regional scales. The goals of the study were to describe the relationships between abiotic characteristics and soil bacteria in this unique, microbially dominated environment, and to test the scale dependence of these relationships in a low complexity ecosystem. Samples were collected from dry mineral soils associated with snow patches, which are a significant source of water in this

SUBMITTER: Van Horn DJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3688848 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature