Assembling microbial communities: a genomic analysis of a natural experiment in neotropical bamboo internodes.

ABSTRACT: Microbes participate in ecological communities, much like multicellular organisms. However, microbial communities lack the centuries of observation and theory describing and predicting ecological processes available for multicellular organisms. Here, we examine early bacterial community assembly in the water-filled internodes of Amazonian bamboos from the genus Guadua. Bamboo stands form distinct habitat patches within the lowland Amazonian rainforest and provide habitat for a suite of vertebrate and invertebrate species. Guadua bamboos develop sealed, water-filled internodes as they grow. Internodes are presumed sterile or near sterile while closed, but most are eventually opened to the environment by animals, after which they are colonized by microbes. We find that microbia

SUBMITTER: Ahluwalia S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9484453 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature