Composition, Structure and Diversity of Soil Bacterial Communities before, during and after Transit through the Gut of the Earthworm Aporrectodea caliginosa.

ABSTRACT: Earthworms heavily modify the soil microbiome as it passes throughout their guts. However, there are no detailed studies describing changes in the composition, structure and diversity of soil microbiomes during gut transit and once they are released back to the soil as casts. To address this knowledge gap, we used 16S rRNA next-generation sequencing to characterize the microbiomes of soil, gut and casts from the earthworm Aporrectodea caliginosa. We also studied whether these three microbiomes are clearly distinct in composition or can be merged into metacommunities. A large proportion of bacteria was unique to each microbiome-soil (82%), gut (89%) and casts (75%), which indicates that the soil microbiome is greatly modified during gut transit. The three microbiomes also differed in

SUBMITTER: Aira M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9144582 | biostudies-literature | 2022 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature