Distribution of thermophilic endospores in a temperate estuary indicate that dispersal history structures sediment microbial communities.

ABSTRACT: Endospores of thermophilic bacteria are found in cold and temperate sediments where they persist in a dormant state. As inactive endospores that cannot grow at the low ambient temperatures, they are akin to tracer particles in cold sediments, unaffected by factors normally governing microbial biogeography (e.g., selection, drift, mutation). This makes thermophilic endospores ideal model organisms for studying microbial biogeography since their spatial distribution can be directly related to their dispersal history. To assess dispersal histories of estuarine bacteria, thermophilic endospores were enriched from sediments along a freshwater-to-marine transect of the River Tyne in high temperature incubations (50°C). Dispersal histories for 75 different taxa indicated that the majority of estu

SUBMITTER: Bell E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6849807 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature