Long-term effects of timber harvesting on hemicellulolytic microbial populations in coniferous forest soils.

ABSTRACT: Forest ecosystems need to be sustainably managed, as they are major reservoirs of biodiversity, provide important economic resources and modulate global climate. We have a poor knowledge of populations responsible for key biomass degradation processes in forest soils and the effects of forest harvesting on these populations. Here, we investigated the effects of three timber-harvesting methods, varying in the degree of organic matter removal, on putatively hemicellulolytic bacterial and fungal populations 10 or more years after harvesting and replanting. We used stable-isotope probing to identify populations that incorporated (13)C from labeled hemicellulose, analyzing (13)C-enriched phospholipid fatty acids, bacterial 16 S rRNA genes and fungal ITS regions. In soil microcosms, we identifie

SUBMITTER: Leung HT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4737928 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature