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Additional file 8: Supplementary Figure 3. Phylogenetic tree of 18S rRNA sequences a) including the 18S sequence of the fungi (a) F9 and (b) F17 and the novel protist (c) P14. Other closely related less abundant OTUs found in this study are also included and highlighted in blue. The hosts the lineages are associated, or which environments they were sequenced from are in parenthesis.

International audience; Summary Soil aggregates are critical to soil functionality, but there remain many uncertainties with respect to the role of biotic factors in forming aggregates. Understanding the interacting effects of soil, land use type, vegetation and microbial communities is a major challenge that needs assessment in both field and controlled laboratory conditions, as well as in bulk and rhizosphere soils. To address these effects and their feedbacks, we first examined the influence of soil, root and litter characteristics along a land use gradient (ancient woodland, secondary woodland, grassland, pasture and arable land) on microbial community structure (in both bulk and rhizosphere soil), as well as on aggregate stability. Then, we performed an inoculation experiment where we extracted soil columns from the arable and secondary woodland and used a third unstructured loamy soil as a control. We sterilized these three soils to remove microbial communities, and then either inoculated the tops of sterilized soil columns with soil from the secondary woodland or the arable field sites. Control columns of all soil types were not inoculated. In a fully-crossed design, we planted two species possessing distinct root system morphological traits: Brachypodium sylvaticum (fibrous system with many thin and fine roots) and Urtica dioica (taproot system with few fine roots). After four months, microbial communities (in bulk and rhizospheric soil) and aggregate stability were measured, along with root traits. In both the field and laboratory experiments, bacterial (16S) and fungal (ITS) biodiversity was determined using high throughput sequencing. In the field study we found that: i) there were strong relationships between aggregate stability and microbial community composition that were driven by land use, ii) the relationship between aggregate stability along the land use gradient and the trophic nature of bacterial communities was not significant, but that certain soil, root and litter parameters shaped bacterial phyla, with oligotrophic bacteria conditioned by the rhizosphere niche, and copiotrophic phyla more dependent on bulk soil conditions, iii) land use gradient (from woodland to arable), reduced the relative abundance of saprotrophic and ectomycorrhizal fungi with an increase in the relative abundance of Ascomycota and a reduction in the relative abundance of Basidiomycota. In the laboratory experiment we found that: i) the inoculation of sterilized soils with soils from the field significantly increased aggregate stability in control soil that was initially poorly structured, ii) the effects of inoculation on aggregate stability were similar when either secondary woodland or arable soils were used as inoculums and iii) these effects were affected significantly by root length density. Our results show that microbial communities influence soil structure and that bacterial communities are intimately associated to rhizospheric conditions and root traits (of which root length density was the most pertinent).

The elevational patterns of plant and animal diversity have been extensively described in ecological theory. However, how soil-temperature gradients and spatial heterogeneity of the forest and its associated root, soil and litter properties affect the diversity of soil microbial communities remains unclear. We studied the effects of a soil-temperature gradient and spatial heterogeneity of forests on taxonomic and phylogenetic patterns of bacterial and fungal communities in plant roots, rhizosphere and bulk soil. Soil samples were collected in closed (tree islands) and open (gaps) forest at three altitudes in the French Alps (1400, 1700 and 2000 m). Samples were separated into three fractions: plant roots (at the community level, as roots were not sorted by species), rhizosphere and bulk soil. Bacterial (16S) and fungal (ITS) diversity was determined, along with soil aggregate stability, litter and root traits. Phylogenetic clustering processes were observed for bacterial but not for fungal communities. Forest spatial heterogeneity significantly influenced taxonomic and phylogenetic diversities and divergence (phylogenetic relatedness) for bacterial communities. The soil temperature gradient and forest spatial heterogeneity affected fungal phylogenetic divergence, even though no over-dispersion or clustering processes were found. Soil aggregate stability was a significant factor explaining the bacterial and fungal communities’ structure and was correlated with bacterial taxonomic diversity and fungal divergence. Bacterial communities’ composition was better explained by root traits than in fungal communities, particularly for rhizosphere and root communities. Our findings highlight the importance of root traits describing the taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity of bacterial communities. Conversely, fungal communities did not show clustering processes and the variance of their structure was not significantly explained by the root or litter traits measured. Additionally, our results highlight the importance of spatial heterogeneity of forests to study the soil biodiversity of forests

Soil microbial communities play a crucial role in ecosystem functioning, but it is unknown how co-occurrence networks within these communities respond to disturbances such as climate extremes. This represents an important knowledge gap because changes in microbial networks could have implications for their functioning and vulnerability to future disturbances. Here, we show in grassland mesocosms that drought promotes destabilising properties in soil bacterial, but not fungal, co-occurrence networks, and that changes in bacterial communities link more strongly to soil functioning during recovery than do changes in fungal communities. Moreover, we reveal that drought has a prolonged effect on bacterial communities and their co-occurrence networks via changes in vegetation composition and resultant reductions in soil moisture. Our results provide new insight in the mechanisms through which drought alters soil microbial communities with potential long-term consequences, including future plant community composition and the ability of aboveground and belowground communities to withstand future disturbances., Drought conditions can alter the composition of soil microbial communities, but the effects of drought on network properties have not been tested. Here, de Vries and colleagues show that co-occurrence networks are destabilised under drought for bacteria but not fungi.

Despite several lines of observational evidence, there is a lack of consensus on whether higher fungal:bacterial (F:B) ratios directly cause higher soil carbon (C) storage. We employed RNA sequencing, protein profiling and isotope tracer techniques to evaluate whether differing F:B ratios are associated with differences in C storage. A mesocosm 13C labeled foliar litter decomposition experiment was performed in two soils that were similar in their physico-chemical properties but differed in microbial community structure, specifically their F:B ratio (determined by PLFA analyses, RNA sequencing and protein profiling; all three corroborating each other). Following litter addition, we observed a consistent increase in abundance of fungal phyla; and greater increases in the fungal dominated soil; implicating the role of fungi in litter decomposition. Litter derived 13C in respired CO2 was consistently lower, and residual 13C in bulk SOM was higher in high F:B soil demonstrating greater C storage potential in the F:B dominated soil. We conclude that in this soil system, the increased abundance of fungi in both soils and the altered C cycling patterns in the F:B dominated soils highlight the significant role of fungi in litter decomposition and indicate that F:B ratios are linked to higher C storage potential.

Microbial biofilms are common on lithic surfaces, including stone buildings. However, the ecology of these communities is poorly understood. Few studies have focused on the spatial characteristics of lithobiontic biofilms, despite the fact that spatial structure has been demonstrated to influence ecosystem function (and hence biodegradation) and community diversity. Furthermore, relatively few studies have utilized molecular techniques to characterize these communities, even though molecular methods have revealed unexpected microbial diversity in other habitats. This study investigated (1) the spatial structure and (2) the taxonomic composition of an epilithic biofilm using molecular techniques, namely amplicon pyrosequencing and terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism. Dispersion indices and Mantel correlograms were used to test for the presence of spatial structure in the biofilm. Diversity metrics and rank-abundance distributions (RADs) were also generated. The study revealed spatial structure on a centimetre scale in eukaryotic microbes (fungi and algae), but not the bacteria. Fungal and bacterial communities were highly diverse; algal communities much less so. The RADs were characterized by a distinctive 'hollow' (concave up) profile and long tails of rare taxa. These findings have implications for understanding the ecology of epilithic biofilms and the spatial heterogeneity of stone biodeterioration.

© 2014 Society for Applied Microbiology and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Summary: It is well established that the release of anthropogenic-derived CO2 into the atmosphere will be mainly absorbed by the oceans, with a concomitant drop in pH, a process termed ocean acidification. As such, there is considerable interest in how changes in increased CO2 and lower pH will affect marine biota, such as bacteria, which play central roles in oceanic biogeochemical processes. Set within an ecological framework, we investigated the direct effects of elevated CO2, contrasted with ambient conditions on the resistance and resilience of marine bacterial communities in a replicated temporal seawater mesocosm experiment. The results of the study strongly indicate that marine bacterial communities are highly resistant to the elevated CO2 and lower pH conditions imposed, as demonstrated from measures of turnover using taxa-time relationships and distance-decay relationships. In addition, no significant differences in community abundance, structure or composition were observed. Our results suggest that there are no direct effects on marine bacterial communities and that the bacterial fraction of microbial plankton holds enough flexibility and evolutionary capacity to withstand predicted future changes from elevated CO2 and subsequent ocean acidification.

International audience; A major obstacle in the molecular investigation of natural, especially oceanic, microbial cells is their adequate preservation for further land-based molecular analyses. Here, we examined the use of microwaves for cell fixation before high-speed flow cytometric sorting to define the metaproteomes and metagenomes of key microbial populations. The microwave fixation procedure was established using cultures of Synechococcus cyanobacteria, the photosynthetic eukaryote Micromonas pusilla and the gammaproteobacterium Halomonas variabilis. Shotgun proteomic analyses showed that the profile of microwave-fixed and -unfixed Synechococcus sp. WH8102 cells was the same, and hence proteome identification of microwave-fixed sorted cells by nanoLC-MS/MS is possible. Microwave-fixed flow-sorted Synechococcus cells can also be successfully used for whole-genome amplification and fosmid library construction. We then carried out successful metaproteomic and metagenomic analyses of microwave-fixed Synechococcus cells flow sorted from concentrates of microbial cells, collected in the North Atlantic Ocean. Thus, the microwave fixation procedure developed appears to be useful for molecular studies of microbial populations in aquatic ecosystems.