Abstract
Dispersal is central to the evolution and maintenance of microbial diversity. Quantifying microbial dispersal and its role in shaping communities remains a challenge, however. Here, we manipulated a bacterial community’s dispersal rate in a grassland ecosystem and test whether this altered diversity and composition. We constructed bags of two nylon mesh sizes that allowed more or less bacterial movement and filled them with an edible or inedible substrate, irradiated plant litter or nylon sheets. We measured changes in bacterial abundance (using flow cytometry) and composition (using 16S amplicon sequencing) in the bags weekly over 5 months. The dispersal treatment altered bacterial colonization rates and led to differences in the abundance, richness, evenness and composition of communities. Overall, the study demonstrates that dispersal influences the assembly of this natural bacterial community.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Claudia Weihe for assistance with field sampling and laboratory methods. We thank Lucía Vivanco, Alexander Chase, Kendra Walters, Sydney Glassman and John Dunbar for comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. This work was supported by a US Department of Education Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN) fellowship to MA and the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER), under Award Number DE-PS02-09ER09-25 to JM.
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Albright, M., Martiny, J. Dispersal alters bacterial diversity and composition in a natural community. ISME J 12, 296–299 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2017.161
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2017.161
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