Bacterial Keystone Taxa Regulate Carbon Metabolism in the Earthworm Gut.

ABSTRACT: As important ecosystem engineers in soils, earthworms strongly influence carbon cycling through their burrowing and feeding activities. Earthworms do not perform these roles in isolation, because their intestines create a special habitat favorable for complex bacterial communities. However, how the ecological functioning of these earthworm-microbe interactions regulates carbon cycling remains largely unknown. To fill this knowledge gap, we investigated the bacterial community structure and carbon metabolic activities in the intestinal contents of earthworms and compared them to those of the adjacent soils in a long-term fertilization experiment. We discovered that earthworms harbored distinct bacterial communities compared to the surrounding soil under different fertilization conditions. T

SUBMITTER: Zhu G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9603485 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature