Project description:It has long been recognized that species occupy a specific ecological niche within their ecosystem. The ecological niche is defined as the number of conditions and resources that limit species distribution. Within their ecological niche, species do not exist in a single physiological state but in a number of states we call the Natural Operating Range. In this paper we link ecological niche theory to physiological ecology by measuring gene expression levels of collembolans exposed to various natural conditions. The soil-dwelling collembolan Folsomia candida was exposed to 26 natural soils with different soil characteristics (soil type, land use, practice, etc). The animals were exposed for two days and gene expression levels were measured. The main factor found to regulate gene expression was the soil type (sand or clay), in which 18.5% of the measured genes were differentially expressed. Gene Ontology analysis showed animals exposed to sandy soils experience general stress, affecting cell homeostasis and replication. Multivariate analysis linking soil chemical data to gene expression data revealed that soil fertility influences gene expression. Land-use and practice had less influence on gene expression; only forest soils showed a different expression pattern. A variation in gene expression variation analysis showed overall low variance in gene expression. The large difference in response to soil type was caused by the soil physicochemical properties where F. candida experiences clay soils and sandy soils as very different from each other. This collembolan prefers fertile soils with high organic matter content, as soil fertility was found to correlate with gene expression and animals exposed to sandy soils (which, in general, have lower organic matter content) experience more general stress. Finally, we conclude that there is no such thing as a fixed physiological state for animals in their ecological niche and the boundary between the ecological niche and a stressed state depends on the genes/pathways investigated.
2011-02-15 | GSE21213 | GEO
Project description:Temple TX native exotic precip study
Project description:It has long been recognized that species occupy a specific ecological niche within their ecosystem. The ecological niche is defined as the number of conditions and resources that limit species distribution. Within their ecological niche, species do not exist in a single physiological state but in a number of states we call the Natural Operating Range. In this paper we link ecological niche theory to physiological ecology by measuring gene expression levels of collembolans exposed to various natural conditions. The soil-dwelling collembolan Folsomia candida was exposed to 26 natural soils with different soil characteristics (soil type, land use, practice, etc). The animals were exposed for two days and gene expression levels were measured. The main factor found to regulate gene expression was the soil type (sand or clay), in which 18.5% of the measured genes were differentially expressed. Gene Ontology analysis showed animals exposed to sandy soils experience general stress, affecting cell homeostasis and replication. Multivariate analysis linking soil chemical data to gene expression data revealed that soil fertility influences gene expression. Land-use and practice had less influence on gene expression; only forest soils showed a different expression pattern. A variation in gene expression variation analysis showed overall low variance in gene expression. The large difference in response to soil type was caused by the soil physicochemical properties where F. candida experiences clay soils and sandy soils as very different from each other. This collembolan prefers fertile soils with high organic matter content, as soil fertility was found to correlate with gene expression and animals exposed to sandy soils (which, in general, have lower organic matter content) experience more general stress. Finally, we conclude that there is no such thing as a fixed physiological state for animals in their ecological niche and the boundary between the ecological niche and a stressed state depends on the genes/pathways investigated. Test animals were exposed to 26 natural soils + 2 control soils. 4 biological replicates per soil containing 25 grams of soil and 30 23-day-old animals per replicate, RNA was isolated after two days of exposure. for the micro-array hybridization design we made use of an interwoven loop design. from the four replicates per soil two were labeled with Cy3 and 2 with Cy5. It was made sure that now two replicates of the same soil were ever hybridized against the same soil.
Project description:Rhizobia are soil bacteria that can enter into complex symbiotic relationships with legumes, where rhizobia induce the formation of nodules on the plant root. Inside nodules, rhizobia differentiate into nitrogen-fixing bacteroids that reduce atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia, secreting it to the plant host in exchange for carbon. During the transition from free-living bacteria to bacteroids, rhizobial metabolism undergoes major changes. To investigate the metabolism of bacteroids and contrast it with the free-living state, we quantified the proteome of unlabelled bacteroids relative to 15N-labelled free-living rhizobia. The data were used to build a core metabolic model of pea bacteroids for the strain Rhizobium leguminosarum bv. viciae 3841.
Project description:GCMS datasets for the soil depth manuscript
Abstract
Two factors that are well-known to influence soil microbiomes include the depth of the soil as well as the level of moisture. Previous works have demonstrated that climate change will increase the incidence of drought in soils, but it is unknown how fluctuations in moisture availability affect soil microbiome composition and functioning down the depth profile. Here, we investigated soil and wheatgrass rhizosphere microbiomes in a common field setting under four different irrigation regimes and three depths. We demonstrated that there is a significant interactive effect, where fluctuations in soil moisture more strongly influence soil microbiomes at the surface layer than in deeper layers, including for soil community composition, diversity, and for functional profiles. Meanwhile, in rhizosphere communities the influence of irrigation was similar across the different depths, although there were slight discrepancies between the two cultivars of wheatgrass used. The lessened response of deeper soil microbiomes to changes in irrigation may be due to higher incidence of slow-growing, stress-resistant microbes.
Project description:Rhizobia are soil bacteria that induce nodule formation on leguminous plants. In the nodules, they reduce dinitrogen to ammonium that can be utilized by plants. Besides nitrogen fixation, rhizobia have other symbiotic functions in plants including phosphorus and iron mobilization and protection of the plants against various abiotic stresses including salinity. Worldwide, about 20% of cultivable and 33% of irrigation land is saline, and it is estimated that around 50% of the arable land will be saline by 2050. Salinity inhibits plant growth and development, results in senescence, and ultimately plant death. The purpose of this study was to investigate how rhizobia, isolated from Kenyan soils, relieve common beans from salinity stress. The yield loss of common bean plants, which were either not inoculated or inoculated with the commercial R. tropici rhizobia CIAT899 was reduced by 73% when the plants were exposed to 300 mM NaCl, while only 60% yield loss was observed after inoculation with a novel indigenous isolate from Kenyan soil, named S3. Expression profiles showed that genes involved in the transport of mineral ions (such as K+, Ca2+, Fe3+, PO43-, and NO3-) to the host plant, and for the synthesis and transport of osmotolerance molecules (soluble carbohydrates, amino acids, and nucleotides) are highly expressed in S3 bacteroids during salt stress than in the controls. Furthermore, genes for the synthesis and transport of glutathione and γ-aminobutyric acid were upregulated in salt-stressed and S3-inocculated common bean plants. We conclude that microbial osmolytes, mineral ions, and antioxidant molecules from rhizobia enhance salt tolerance in common beans.
Project description:Identification of the peptides composing the enriched multisubunit enzymes natively purified from the microbial enrichment, based on gel bands obtained by native electrophoresis. The anaerobic oxidation of alkanes is a microbial process occurring in deep-sea hydrocarbon seeps that plays a key ecological role in these exotic niches. The metabolic capacity of anaerobic ethane oxidation, involving uncharted biochemistry, was reported in two archaeal species depending on sulfate-reducing partner bacteria. This study deciphers the molecular basis of the CO2-generating steps of ethanotrophy by characterising the native archaeal enzymes isolated from a thermophilic enrichment. While other microorganisms couple these steps to ferredoxin reduction, we found that the CO-dehydrogenase and the formylmethanofuran-dehydrogenase are bound to F420-reductase modules. The crystal structures of these multi-metalloenzyme complexes revealed electronic bridges coupling C1-oxidation to F420-reduction. Accordingly, both systems exhibit robust F420-reductase activities, which are not detected in methanogenic or methanotrophic relative organisms. We speculate that the whole catabolism of these archaea is reoriented towards F420-reduction, which facilitates the electron transfer to the sulfate-reducing partner, therefore representing the driving force of ethanotrophy.