Bacteria as Emerging Indicators of Soil Condition.

ABSTRACT: Bacterial communities are important for the health and productivity of soil ecosystems and have great potential as novel indicators of environmental perturbations. To assess how they are affected by anthropogenic activity and to determine their ability to provide alternative metrics of environmental health, we sought to define which soil variables bacteria respond to across multiple soil types and land uses. We determined, through 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing, the composition of bacterial communities in soil samples from 110 natural or human-impacted sites, located up to 300 km apart. Overall, soil bacterial communities varied more in response to changing soil environments than in response to changes in climate or increasing geographic distance. We identified strong correlations betwe

SUBMITTER: Hermans SM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5165110 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature