Habitat-dependent composition of bacterial and fungal communities in biological soil crusts from Oman.

ABSTRACT: Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) occur within drylands throughout the world, covering ~12% of the global terrestrial soil surface. Their occurrence in the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula has rarely been reported and their spatial distribution, diversity, and microbial composition remained largely unexplored. We investigated biocrusts at six different locations in the coastal and central deserts of Oman. The biocrust types were characterized, and the bacterial and fungal community compositions of biocrusts and uncrusted soils were analysed by amplicon sequencing. The results were interpreted based on the environmental parameters of the different sites. Whereas at lowland sites, mainly cyanobacteria-dominated biocrusts were observed, both cyanobacteria- and lichen-dominated biocrusts occu

SUBMITTER: Abed RMM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6478931 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature