Photoautotrophic organisms control microbial abundance, diversity, and physiology in different types of biological soil crusts.

ABSTRACT: Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) cover about 12% of the Earth's land masses, thereby providing ecosystem services and affecting biogeochemical fluxes on a global scale. They comprise photoautotrophic cyanobacteria, algae, lichens and mosses, which grow together with heterotrophic microorganisms, forming a model system to study facilitative interactions and assembly principles in natural communities. Biocrusts can be classified into cyanobacteria-, lichen-, and bryophyte-dominated types, which reflect stages of ecological succession. In this study, we examined whether these categories include a shift in heterotrophic communities and whether this may be linked to altered physiological properties. We analyzed the microbial community composition by means of qPCR and high-throughput amplicon

SUBMITTER: Maier S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5864206 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature