Spatial patterns of bacteria show that members of higher taxa share ecological characteristics

Laurent Philippot (1) , David Bru (1) , Nicolas Saby (2) , Dominique Arrouays (2) , Sara Hallin (3)

1 MSE - Microbiologie du Sol et de l'Environnement
2 InfoSol - InfoSol
3 SLU - Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences = Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet

Whether bacteria display spatial patterns of distribution and at which level of taxonomic organization such patterns can be observed are central questions in microbial ecology. Here we investigated how the total and relative abundances of eight bacterial taxa at the phylum or class level were spatially distributed in a pasture by using quantitative PCR and geostatistical modelling. The distributions of the relative abundance of most taxa varied by a factor of 2.520136.5 and displayed strong spatial patterns at the field scale. These spatial patterns were taxon-specific and correlated to soil properties, which indicates that members of a bacterial clade defined at high taxonomical levels shared specific ecological traits in the pasture. Ecologically meaningful assemblages of bacteria at the phylum or class level in the environment provides evidence that deep branching patterns of the 16S rRNA bacterial tree are actually mirrored in nature.

Mots clés: bacteria; taxa; ecology; spatial pattern

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]

Laurent Philippot, David Bru, Nicolas Saby, Dominique Arrouays, Sara Hallin. Spatial patterns of bacteria show that members of higher taxa share ecological characteristics. 3rd FEMS Congress of European Microbiologists - Microbes and Man- interdependence and future challenges, Jun 2009, Gothenburg, Sweden. 1 p., 2009. ⟨hal-01231304⟩