Project description:Increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations are causing decreased pH over vast expanses of the ocean. This decreasing pH may alter biogeochemical cycling of carbon and nitrogen via the microbial process of nitrification, a key process that couples these cycles in the ocean, but which is often sensitive to acidic conditions. Recent reports indicate a decrease in oceanic nitrification rates under experimentally lowered pH. How composition and abundance of ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and archaea (AOA) assemblages respond to decreasing oceanic pH, however, is unknown. We sampled microbes from two different acidification experiments and used a combination of qPCR and functional gene microarrays for the ammonia monooxygenase gene (amoA) to assess how acidification alters the structure of ammonia oxidizer assemblages. We show that despite widely different experimental conditions, acidification consistently altered the community composition of AOB by increasing the relative abundance of taxa related to the Nitrosomonas ureae clade. In one experiment this increase was sufficient to cause an increase in the overall abundance of AOB. There were no systematic shifts in the community structure or abundance of AOA in either experiment. These different responses to acidification underscore the important role of microbial community structure in the resiliency of marine ecosystems. SUBMITTER_CITATION: Title: Acidification alters the composition of ammonia oxidizing microbial assemblages in marine mesocosms Journal: Marine Ecology Progress Series Issue: 492 Pages: 1-8 DOI: 10.3354/meps 10526 Authors: Jennifer L Bowen Patrick J Kearns Michael Holcomb Bess B Ward
Project description:Functional redundancy in bacterial communities is expected to allow microbial assemblages to survive perturbation by allowing continuity in function despite compositional changes in communities. Recent evidence suggests, however, that microbial communities change both composition and function as a result of disturbance. We present evidence for a third response: resistance. We examined microbial community response to perturbation caused by nutrient enrichment in salt marsh sediments using deep pyrosequencing of 16S rRNA and functional gene microarrays targeting the nirS gene. Composition of the microbial community, as demonstrated by both genes, was unaffected by significant variations in external nutrient supply, despite demonstrable and diverse nutrient–induced changes in many aspects of marsh ecology. The lack of response to external forcing demonstrates a remarkable uncoupling between microbial composition and ecosystem-level biogeochemical processes and suggests that sediment microbial communities are able to resist some forms of perturbation.
Project description:Microbial communities in the rhizosphere make significant contributions to crop health and nutrient cycling. However, their ability to perform important biogeochemical processes remains uncharacterized. Important functional genes, which characterize the rhizosphere microbial community, were identified to understand metabolic capabilities in the maize rhizosphere using GeoChip 3.0-based functional gene array method.
2014-09-12 | GSE61338 | GEO
Project description:Effect of various crop residues on soil microbial populations of Angelica sinensis
Project description:Functional redundancy in bacterial communities is expected to allow microbial assemblages to survive perturbation by allowing continuity in function despite compositional changes in communities. Recent evidence suggests, however, that microbial communities change both composition and function as a result of disturbance. We present evidence for a third response: resistance. We examined microbial community response to perturbation caused by nutrient enrichment in salt marsh sediments using deep pyrosequencing of 16S rRNA and functional gene microarrays targeting the nirS gene. Composition of the microbial community, as demonstrated by both genes, was unaffected by significant variations in external nutrient supply, despite demonstrable and diverse nutrient–induced changes in many aspects of marsh ecology. The lack of response to external forcing demonstrates a remarkable uncoupling between microbial composition and ecosystem-level biogeochemical processes and suggests that sediment microbial communities are able to resist some forms of perturbation. nirS gene diversity from two salt marsh experiments, GSM (4 treatments, 8 samples, duplicate arrays, four replicate blocks per array, 8 arrays per slide) and PIE (2 treatments, 16 samples, duplicate arrays four replicate blocks per array, 8 arrays per slide)