The impact of hydration and temperature on bacterial diversity in arid soil mesocosms

Adam Št'ovíček, Ani Azatyan, M. Ines M. Soares, Osnat Gillor

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

16 Scopus citations

Abstract

Hot desert ecosystems experience rare and unpredictable rainfall events that resuscitate the arid flora and fauna. However, the effect of this sudden abundance of water on soil microbial communities is still under debate. We modeled varying rainfall amounts and temperatures in desert soil mesocosms and monitored the microbial community response over a period of 21 days. We studied two different wetting events, simulating heavy (50 mm) and light (10 mm) rain, as well as three different temperature regimes: constant 25° or 36°C, or a temperature diurnal cycle alternating between 36 and 10 °C. Amplicon sequencing of the bacterial ribosomal RNA revealed that rain intensity affects the soil bacterial community, but the effects are mitigated by temperature. The combination of water-pulse intensity with lower temperature had the greatest effect on the bacterial community. These experiments demonstrated that the soil microbial response to rain events is dependent not only on the intensity of the water pulse but also on the ambient temperature, thus emphasizing the complexity of bacterial responses to highly unpredictable environments.

Original languageEnglish
Article number1078
JournalFrontiers in Microbiology
Volume8
Issue numberJUN
DOIs
StatePublished - 14 Jun 2017

Keywords

  • Bacteria
  • Desert soil
  • Desiccation
  • Hydration
  • Mesocosm

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Microbiology
  • Microbiology (medical)

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'The impact of hydration and temperature on bacterial diversity in arid soil mesocosms'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this