Dataset Information

Cell-to-cell bacterial interactions promoted by drier conditions on soil surfaces.

ABSTRACT: Bacterial cell-to-cell interactions are in the core of evolutionary and ecological processes in soil and other environments. Under most conditions, natural soils are unsaturated where the fragmented aqueous habitats and thin liquid films confine bacterial cells within small volumes and close proximity for prolonged periods. We report effects of a range of hydration conditions on bacterial cell-level interactions that are marked by plasmid transfer between donor and recipient cells within populations of the soil bacterium Pseudomonas putida Using hydration-controlled sand microcosms, we demonstrate that the frequency of cell-to-cell contacts under prescribed hydration increases with lowering water potential values (i.e., under drier conditions where the aqueous phase shrinks and fragments). These observations were supported using a mechanistic individual-based model for linking macroscopic soil water potential to microscopic distribution of liquid phase and explicit bacterial cell interactions in a simplified porous medium. Model results are in good agreement with observations and inspire confidence in the underlying mechanisms. The study highlights important physical factors that control short-range bacterial cell interactions in soil and on surfaces, specifically, the central role of the aqueous phase in mediating bacterial interactions and conditions that promote genetic information transfer in support of soil microbial diversity.

SUBMITTER: Tecon R

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6166830 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Cell-to-cell bacterial interactions promoted by drier conditions on soil surfaces.

Tecon Robin R Ebrahimi Ali A Kleyer Hannah H Erev Levi Shai S Or Dani D

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20180912 39

Bacterial cell-to-cell interactions are in the core of evolutionary and ecological processes in soil and other environments. Under most conditions, natural soils are unsaturated where the fragmented aqueous habitats and thin liquid films confine bacterial cells within small volumes and close proximity for prolonged periods. We report effects of a range of hydration conditions on bacterial cell-level interactions that are marked by plasmid transfer between donor and recipient cells within populat ...[more]

PMID: 30209211

Similar Datasets

Project description:The rapid expansion of urbanization has caused land cover change, especially the increasing area of impervious surfaces. Such alterations have significant effects on the soil ecosystem by impeding the exchange of gasses, water, and materials between soil and the atmosphere. It is unclear whether impervious surfaces have any effects on soil bacterial diversity and community composition. In the present study, we conducted an investigation of bacterial communities across five typical land cover types, including impervious surfaces (concrete), permeable pavement (bricks with round holes), shrub coverage (Buxus megistophylla Levl.), lawns (Festuca elata Keng ex E. Alexeev), and roadside trees (Sophora japonica Linn.) in Beijing, to explore the response of bacteria to impervious surfaces. The soil bacterial communities were addressed by high-throughput sequencing of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene. We found that Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Acidobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Chloroflexi, and Firmicutes were the predominant phyla in urban soils. Soil from impervious surfaces presented a lower bacterial diversity, and differed greatly from other types of land cover. Soil bacterial diversity was predominantly affected by Zn, dissolved organic carbon (DOC), and soil moisture content (SMC). The composition of the bacterial community was similar under shrub coverage, roadside trees, and lawns, but different from beneath impervious surfaces and permeable pavement. Variance partitioning analysis showed that edaphic properties contributed to 12% of the bacterial community variation, heavy metal pollution explained 3.6% of the variation, and interaction between the two explained 33% of the variance. Together, our data indicate that impervious surfaces induced changes in bacterial community composition and decrease of bacterial diversity. Interactions between edaphic properties and heavy metals were here found to change the composition of the bacterial community and diversity across areas with different types of land cover, and soil properties play a more important role than heavy metals.

Dataset Information

Cell-to-cell bacterial interactions promoted by drier conditions on soil surfaces.

Publications

Cell-to-cell bacterial interactions promoted by drier conditions on soil surfaces.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets