Seasonal, sub-seasonal and diurnal variation of soil bacterial community composition in a temperate deciduous forest.

ABSTRACT: The temporal dynamics of soil bacterial communities are understudied, but such understanding is critical to elucidating the drivers of community variation. The goal of this study was to characterize how soil bacterial communities vary across diurnal, sub-seasonal and seasonal time-scales in a 5.8 m2 plot and test the hypothesis that bacterial diversity varies on each of these scales. We used 16S rDNA gene amplicon sequencing to quantify the alpha and beta diversity of soil bacteria as well as the Net Relatedness Index and Nearest Taxon Indices to assess the degree of phylogenetic clustering, and the extent to which community shifts were driven by stochastic vs. deterministic limitation. We found that species richness was highest in winter, lowest in fall and that communities were compositi

SUBMITTER: Landesman WJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6353803 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature