Environmental and Anthropogenic Factors Shape Major Bacterial Community Types Across the Complex Mountain Landscape of Switzerland.

ABSTRACT: Mountain areas harbor large climatic and geographic gradients and form numerous habitats that promote high overall biodiversity. Compared to macroorganisms, knowledge about drivers of biodiversity and distribution of soil bacteria in mountain regions is still scarce but a prerequisite for conservation of bacterial functions in soils. An important question is, whether soil bacterial communities with similar structures share environmental preferences. Using metabarcoding of the 16S rRNA gene marker, we assessed soil bacterial communities at 255 sites of a regular grid covering the mountainous landscape of Switzerland, which is characterized by close location of biogeographic regions that harbor different land-use types. Distribution of bacterial communities was mainly shaped by environmental

SUBMITTER: Mayerhofer J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7990788 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature