Spatial patterns of hypolithic cyanobacterial diversity in Northern Australia.

ABSTRACT: Photosynthetic microbial communities under translucent rocks (hypolithic) are found in many arid regions. At the global scale, there has been little intercontinental gene flow, and at a local scale, microbial composition is related to fine-scale features of the rocks and their environment. Few studies have investigated patterns of hypolithic community composition at intermediate distances. We examined hypolithic cyanobacterial diversity in semi-arid Australia along a 10-km transect by sampling six rocks from four adjacent 1 m² quadrats ("distance zero") and from additional quadrats at 10, 100, 1,000, and 10,000 m to test the hypothesis that diversity would increase with the number of rocks sampled and distance. A total of 3,108 cyanobacterial operational taxonomic units (OTUs) w

SUBMITTER: Christian K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5587464 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature