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Flavobacterial Community Structure in a Hardwater Rivulet and Adjacent Forest Soil, Harz Mountain, Germany

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Abstract

The great increase in the abundance and phylogenetic diversity of Flavobacterium spp. within a few hundred meters downstream of the discharge site of the Westerhöfer Bach, a hardwater rivulet, raised the question whether adjacent soil may serve as a reservoir of bacteria not detected in discharge water. To address this question, denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) analyses of the V3 region of Flavobacterium 16S rRNA genes were performed on DNA from nine soil samples and five rivulet sites. The resulting patterns were tested for the significance of differences between the sampling habitats using the nonparametric analysis of similarities and multidimensional scaling procedures. Even though both habitats were sampled in two consecutive years DGGE patterns of soil and downstream water samples showed significant overlap (R = 0.614). Sequencing of 57 DGGE bands resulted in 30 different sequences, which, on the basis of BLAST analyses, were between 96% and 100% similar to published clone, DGGE, and strain sequences from a wide range of different habitats. Forty-five percent of the highly similar sequences included those of isolates from the Westerhöfer Bach, while the other sequences were more closely related to clones and cultures from other habitats, especially agricultural soil. Based on these results we suggest that the increase in flavobacterial strain diversity and abundance in the rivulet may originate from soil microflora.

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Acknowledgments

I thank Erko Stackebrandt for the sequence analysis and Orsola Päuker for the preparation of bacteria-loaded filters. This project is part of the Research Unit 571 “Geobiology of Organo- and Biofilms,” funded by the German Research Foundation (Sta 184/19-2; DFG-FOR 571; publication 35).

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  1. German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures GmbH (DSMZ), Inhoffenstrasse 7B, 38124, Braunschweig, Germany

    Sylvie Cousin

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  1. Sylvie Cousin
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Correspondence to Sylvie Cousin.

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Cousin, S. Flavobacterial Community Structure in a Hardwater Rivulet and Adjacent Forest Soil, Harz Mountain, Germany. Curr Microbiol 58, 409–415 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-008-9323-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-008-9323-5

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