Bacterial contributions to delignification and lignocellulose degradation in forest soils with metagenomic and quantitative stable isotope probing.

ABSTRACT: Delignification, or lignin-modification, facilitates the decomposition of lignocellulose in woody plant biomass. The extant diversity of lignin-degrading bacteria and fungi is underestimated by culture-dependent methods, limiting our understanding of the functional and ecological traits of decomposers populations. Here, we describe the use of stable isotope probing (SIP) coupled with amplicon and shotgun metagenomics to identify and characterize the functional attributes of lignin, cellulose and hemicellulose-degrading fungi and bacteria in coniferous forest soils from across North America. We tested the extent to which catabolic genes partitioned among different decomposer taxa; the relative roles of bacteria and fungi, and whether taxa or catabolic genes correlated with variation in lign

SUBMITTER: Wilhelm RC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6331573 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature