Abstract
The central Namib Desert is hyperarid, where limited plant growth ensures that biogeochemical processes are largely driven by microbial populations. Recent research has shown that niche partitioning is critically involved in the assembly of Namib Desert edaphic communities. However, these studies have mainly focussed on the Domain Bacteria. Using microbial community fingerprinting, we compared the assembly of the bacterial, fungal and archaeal populations of microbial communities across nine soil niches from four Namib Desert soil habitats (riverbed, dune, gravel plain and salt pan). Permutational multivariate analysis of variance indicated that the nine soil niches presented significantly different physicochemistries (R 2 = 0.8306, P ≤ 0.0001) and that bacterial, fungal and archaeal populations were soil niche specific (R 2 ≥ 0.64, P ≤ 0.001). However, the abiotic drivers of community structure were Domain-specific (P < 0.05), with P, clay and sand fraction, and NH4 influencing bacterial, fungal and archaeal communities, respectively. Soil physicochemistry and soil niche explained over 50% of the variation in community structure, and communities displayed strong non-random patterns of co-occurrence. Taken together, these results demonstrate that in central Namib Desert soil microbial communities, assembly is principally driven by deterministic processes.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the South African National Research Foundation (Grant Number N00113-95565) and the University of Pretoria (UP) for supporting this research. We also thank Mr. Charl Herzog of the Department of Plant Production and Soil Science (UP) for providing facilities and assistance with the soil chemistry analysis, as well as the Sequencing and Bioinformatics Unit (UP) for the TRFLP analysis. We also thank MW Van Goethem and AJ van der Walt for helpful comments and insightful criticism regarding the manuscript.
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Johnson, R.M., Ramond, JB., Gunnigle, E. et al. Namib Desert edaphic bacterial, fungal and archaeal communities assemble through deterministic processes but are influenced by different abiotic parameters. Extremophiles 21, 381–392 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00792-016-0911-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00792-016-0911-1