Microbial diversity in tropical marine sediments assessed using culture-dependent and culture-independent techniques.

ABSTRACT: The microbial communities associated with marine sediments are critical for ecosystem function yet remain poorly characterized. While culture-independent (CI) techniques capture the broadest perspective on community composition, culture-dependent (CD) methods can select for low abundance taxa that are missed using CI approaches. This study aimed to assess microbial diversity in tropical marine sediments at five shallow-water sites in Belize using both CD and CI techniques. The CD methods captured approximately 3% of the >800 genera detected across all sites using the CI approach. Additionally, 39 genera were only detected in culture, revealing rare taxa that were missed with the CI approach. Significantly different communities were detected across sites, with rare taxa playing an important

SUBMITTER: Demko AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8670064 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature