Visualizing Microbial Community Dynamics via a Controllable Soil Environment.

ABSTRACT: Understanding the basic biology that underpins soil microbiome interactions is required to predict the metaphenomic response to environmental shifts. A significant knowledge gap remains in how such changes affect microbial community dynamics and their metabolic landscape at microbially relevant spatial scales. Using a custom-built SoilBox system, here we demonstrated changes in microbial community growth and composition in different soil environments (14%, 24%, and 34% soil moisture), contingent upon access to reservoirs of nutrient sources. The SoilBox emulates the probing depth of a common soil core and enables determination of both the spatial organization of the microbial communities and their metabolites, as shown by confocal microscopy in combination with mass spectrometry imaging (M

SUBMITTER: Bhattacharjee A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7018529 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature