PAPER: Temporal variation in soil bacterial ...

Temporal variation in soil bacterial communities can be confounded with spatial variation

September 2020

Hermans SM, Buckley HL, Curran-Cournane F, Taylor M, Lear G. 2020. Temporal variation in soil bacterial communities can be confounded with spatial variation. FEMS Microbiol Ecol 96(12).

ABSTRACT

Investigating temporal variation in soil bacterial communities advances our fundamental understanding of the causal processes driving biological variation, and how the composition of these important ecosystem members may change into the future. Despite this, temporal variation in soil bacteria remains understudied, and the effects of spatial heterogeneity in bacterial communities on the detection of temporal changes is largely unknown. Using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing, we evaluated temporal patterns in soil bacterial communities from indigenous forest and human-impacted sites sampled repeatedly over a 5-year period.

KEYWORDS

16S rRNA; soil microbial ecology; spatial variation; temporal variation; native forests; primary forests; environmental monitoring; soil health