Long-Term Cellulose Enrichment Selects for Highly Cellulolytic Consortia and Competition for Public Goods.

ABSTRACT: The complexity of microbial communities hinders our understanding of how microbial diversity and microbe-microbe interactions impact community functions. Here, using six independent communities originating from the refuse dumps of leaf-cutter ants and enriched using the plant polymer cellulose as the sole source of carbon, we examine how changes in bacterial diversity and interactions impact plant biomass decomposition. Over up to 60 serial transfers (∼8 months) using Whatman cellulose filter paper, cellulolytic ability increased and then stabilized in four enrichment lines and was variable in two lines. Bacterial community characterization using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing showed community succession differed between the highly cellulolytic enrichment lines and those that had slower

SUBMITTER: Lewin GR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9040578 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature