Exometabolite niche partitioning among sympatric soil bacteria

Richard Baran, Eoin L. Brodie, Jazmine Mayberry-Lewis, Eric Hummel, Ulisses Nunes Da Rocha, Romy Chakraborty, Benjamin P. Bowen, Ulas Karaoz, Hinsby Cadillo-Quiroz, Ferran Garcia-Pichel and Trent R. Northen ()
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Richard Baran: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Eoin L. Brodie: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Jazmine Mayberry-Lewis: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Eric Hummel: School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University
Ulisses Nunes Da Rocha: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Romy Chakraborty: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Benjamin P. Bowen: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Ulas Karaoz: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Hinsby Cadillo-Quiroz: School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University
Ferran Garcia-Pichel: School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University
Trent R. Northen: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Nature Communications, 2015, vol. 6, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Soils are arguably the most microbially diverse ecosystems. Physicochemical properties have been associated with the maintenance of this diversity. Yet, the role of microbial substrate specialization is largely unexplored since substrate utilization studies have focused on simple substrates, not the complex mixtures representative of the soil environment. Here we examine the exometabolite composition of desert biological soil crusts (biocrusts) and the substrate preferences of seven biocrust isolates. The biocrust's main primary producer releases a diverse array of metabolites, and isolates of physically associated taxa use unique subsets of the complex metabolite pool. Individual isolates use only 13−26% of available metabolites, with only 2 out of 470 used by all and 40% not used by any. An extension of this approach to a mesophilic soil environment also reveals high levels of microbial substrate specialization. These results suggest that exometabolite niche partitioning may be an important factor in the maintenance of microbial diversity.

Date: 2015
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms9289

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