Estimating Population Turnover Rates by Relative Quantification Methods Reveals Microbial Dynamics in Marine Sediment.

ABSTRACT: The difficulty involved in quantifying biogeochemically significant microbes in marine sediments limits our ability to assess interspecific interactions, population turnover times, and niches of uncultured taxa. We incubated surface sediments from Cape Lookout Bight, North Carolina, USA, anoxically at 21°C for 122 days. Sulfate decreased until day 68, after which methane increased, with hydrogen concentrations consistent with the predicted values of an electron donor exerting thermodynamic control. We measured turnover times using two relative quantification methods, quantitative PCR (qPCR) and the product of 16S gene read abundance and total cell abundance (FRAxC, which stands for "fraction of read abundance times cells"), to estimate the population turnover rates of uncultured clades. Mo

SUBMITTER: Kevorkian R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5734028 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature