How, When, and Where Relic DNA Affects Microbial Diversity.

ABSTRACT: Extracellular or "relic" DNA is one of the largest pools of nucleic acids in the biosphere. Relic DNA can influence a number of important ecological and evolutionary processes, but it may also affect estimates of microbial abundance and diversity, which has implications for understanding environmental, engineered, and host-associated ecosystems. We developed models capturing the fundamental processes that regulate the size and composition of the relic DNA pools to identify scenarios leading to biased estimates of biodiversity. Our models predict that bias increases with relic DNA pool size, but only when the species abundance distributions (SADs) of relic and intact DNA are distinct from one another. We evaluated our model predictions by quantifying relic DNA and assessing its contribution

SUBMITTER: Lennon JT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6016248 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature