Bacterial Dispersal Promotes Biodegradation in Heterogeneous Systems Exposed to Osmotic Stress.

ABSTRACT: Contaminant biodegradation in soils is hampered by the heterogeneous distribution of degrading communities colonizing isolated microenvironments as a result of the soil architecture. Over the last years, soil salinization was recognized as an additional problem especially in arid and semiarid ecosystems as it drastically reduces the activity and motility of bacteria. Here, we studied the importance of different spatial processes for benzoate biodegradation at an environmentally relevant range of osmotic potentials (ΔΨo) using model ecosystems exhibiting a heterogeneous distribution of the soil-borne bacterium Pseudomonas putida KT2440. Three systematically manipulated scenarios allowed us to cover the effects of (i) substrate diffusion, (ii) substrate diffusion and autonomous bacterial dis

SUBMITTER: Worrich A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4971104 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature