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Soil Microbial Abundance and Diversity Along a Low Precipitation Gradient

  • Soil Microbiology
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Abstract

The exploration of spatial patterns of abundance and diversity patterns along precipitation gradients has focused for centuries on plants and animals; microbial profiles along such gradients are largely unknown. We studied the effects of soil pH, nutrient concentration, salinity, and water content on bacterial abundance and diversity in soils collected from Mediterranean, semi-arid, and arid sites receiving approximately 400, 300, and 100 mm annual precipitation, respectively. Bacterial diversity was evaluated by terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism and clone library analyses and the patterns obtained varied with the climatic regions. Over 75% of the sequenced clones were unique to their environment, while ∼2% were shared by all sites, yet, the Mediterranean and semi-arid sites had more common clones (∼9%) than either had with the arid site (4.7% and 6%, respectively). The microbial abundance, estimated by phospholipid fatty acids and real-time quantitative PCR assays, was significantly lower in the arid region. Our results indicate that although soil bacterial abundance decreases with precipitation, bacterial diversity is independent of precipitation gradient. Furthermore, community composition was found to be unique to each ecosystem.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the contribution of the Michigan State University (Ribosomal Database Project), and the technical assistance of Rina Myaskovsky and Reuma Arusi. We thank Yael Lubin for allowing the use of unpublished data and for fruitful discussions, and the Israeli LTER (http://lter.bgu.ac.il) for allowing sampling on their sites.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research, The Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Sede Boqer, 84990, Israel

    Ami Bachar, Ashraf Al-Ashhab, M. Ines M. Soares, Menachem Y. Sklarz & Osnat Gillor

  2. Max-Planck-Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, Marburg, Germany

    Roey Angel

  3. Department of Agronomy and Natural Resources, Institute of Plant Sciences, Agricultural Research Organization, The Volcani Center, Bet Dagan, Israel

    Eugene D. Ungar

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  1. Ami Bachar
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  2. Ashraf Al-Ashhab
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  3. M. Ines M. Soares
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  4. Menachem Y. Sklarz
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  5. Roey Angel
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  7. Osnat Gillor
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Correspondence to Osnat Gillor.

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Bachar, A., Al-Ashhab, A., Soares, M.I.M. et al. Soil Microbial Abundance and Diversity Along a Low Precipitation Gradient. Microb Ecol 60, 453–461 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-010-9727-1

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