Composition of soil microbiome along elevation gradients in southwestern highlands of Saudi Arabia.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Saudi Arabia is mostly barren except the southwestern highlands that are susceptible to environmental changes, a hotspot for biodiversity, but poorly studied for microbial diversity and composition. In this study, 454-pyrosequencing of 16S rRNA gene hypervariable region V6 was used to analyze soil bacterial community along elevation gradients of the southwestern highlands.

Results

In general, lower percentage of total soil organic matter (SOM) and nitrogen were detected in the analyzed soil samples. Total 33 different phyla were identified across the samples, including dominant phyla Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria and Acidobacteria. Representative OTUs were grouped into 329 and 508 different taxa at family and genus level taxonomic classification, respectively. Th

SUBMITTER: Yasir M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4374494 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature