Local Environmental Factors Drive Divergent Grassland Soil Bacterial Communities in the Western Swiss Alps.

ABSTRACT: Mountain ecosystems are characterized by a diverse range of climatic and topographic conditions over short distances and are known to shelter a high biodiversity. Despite important progress, still little is known on bacterial diversity in mountain areas. Here, we investigated soil bacterial biogeography at more than 100 sampling sites randomly stratified across a 700-km² area with 2,200-m elevation gradient in the western Swiss Alps. Bacterial grassland communities were highly diverse, with 12,741 total operational taxonomic units (OTUs) across 100 sites and an average of 2,918 OTUs per site. Bacterial community structure was correlated with local climatic, topographic, and soil physicochemical parameters with high statistical significance. We found pH (correlated with % CaO and

SUBMITTER: Yashiro E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5066347 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature