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Canopy soil bacterial communities altered by severing host tree limbs

Trees of temperate rainforests host a large biomass of epiphytic plants, which are associated with soils formed in the forest canopy. Falling of epiphytic material results in the transfer of carbon and nutrients from the canopy to the forest floor. This study provides the first characterization of b...

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Autores principales: Dangerfield, Cody R., Nadkarni, Nalini M., Brazelton, William J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5591635/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28894646
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3773
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author Dangerfield, Cody R.
Nadkarni, Nalini M.
Brazelton, William J.
author_facet Dangerfield, Cody R.
Nadkarni, Nalini M.
Brazelton, William J.
author_sort Dangerfield, Cody R.
collection PubMed
description Trees of temperate rainforests host a large biomass of epiphytic plants, which are associated with soils formed in the forest canopy. Falling of epiphytic material results in the transfer of carbon and nutrients from the canopy to the forest floor. This study provides the first characterization of bacterial communities in canopy soils enabled by high-depth environmental sequencing of 16S rRNA genes. Canopy soil included many of the same major taxonomic groups of Bacteria that are also found in ground soil, but canopy bacterial communities were lower in diversity and contained different operational taxonomic units. A field experiment was conducted with epiphytic material from six Acer macrophyllum trees in Olympic National Park, Washington, USA to document changes in the bacterial communities of soils associated with epiphytic material that falls to the forest floor. Bacterial diversity and composition of canopy soil was highly similar, but not identical, to adjacent ground soil two years after transfer to the forest floor, indicating that canopy bacteria are almost, but not completely, replaced by ground soil bacteria. Furthermore, soil associated with epiphytic material on branches that were severed from the host tree and suspended in the canopy contained altered bacterial communities that were distinct from those in canopy material moved to the forest floor. Therefore, the unique nature of canopy soil bacteria is determined in part by the host tree and not only by the physical environmental conditions associated with the canopy. Connection to the living tree appears to be a key feature of the canopy habitat. These results represent an initial survey of bacterial diversity of the canopy and provide a foundation upon which future studies can more fully investigate the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of these communities.
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spelling pubmed-55916352017-09-11 Canopy soil bacterial communities altered by severing host tree limbs Dangerfield, Cody R. Nadkarni, Nalini M. Brazelton, William J. PeerJ Ecology Trees of temperate rainforests host a large biomass of epiphytic plants, which are associated with soils formed in the forest canopy. Falling of epiphytic material results in the transfer of carbon and nutrients from the canopy to the forest floor. This study provides the first characterization of bacterial communities in canopy soils enabled by high-depth environmental sequencing of 16S rRNA genes. Canopy soil included many of the same major taxonomic groups of Bacteria that are also found in ground soil, but canopy bacterial communities were lower in diversity and contained different operational taxonomic units. A field experiment was conducted with epiphytic material from six Acer macrophyllum trees in Olympic National Park, Washington, USA to document changes in the bacterial communities of soils associated with epiphytic material that falls to the forest floor. Bacterial diversity and composition of canopy soil was highly similar, but not identical, to adjacent ground soil two years after transfer to the forest floor, indicating that canopy bacteria are almost, but not completely, replaced by ground soil bacteria. Furthermore, soil associated with epiphytic material on branches that were severed from the host tree and suspended in the canopy contained altered bacterial communities that were distinct from those in canopy material moved to the forest floor. Therefore, the unique nature of canopy soil bacteria is determined in part by the host tree and not only by the physical environmental conditions associated with the canopy. Connection to the living tree appears to be a key feature of the canopy habitat. These results represent an initial survey of bacterial diversity of the canopy and provide a foundation upon which future studies can more fully investigate the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of these communities. PeerJ Inc. 2017-09-06 /pmc/articles/PMC5591635/ /pubmed/28894646 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3773 Text en ©2017 Dangerfield et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Ecology
Dangerfield, Cody R.
Nadkarni, Nalini M.
Brazelton, William J.
Canopy soil bacterial communities altered by severing host tree limbs
title Canopy soil bacterial communities altered by severing host tree limbs
title_full Canopy soil bacterial communities altered by severing host tree limbs
title_fullStr Canopy soil bacterial communities altered by severing host tree limbs
title_full_unstemmed Canopy soil bacterial communities altered by severing host tree limbs
title_short Canopy soil bacterial communities altered by severing host tree limbs
title_sort canopy soil bacterial communities altered by severing host tree limbs
topic Ecology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5591635/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28894646
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3773
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