Cyanobacteria in New Zealand indigenous grasslands

Abstract

We review current knowledge of cyanobacterial diversity and abundance in New Zealand's indigenous tussock grassland soils and present preliminary results on microbial diversity in grassland soils. A cyanobacterial community of eight operational taxonomic units was present in soil samples from Deep Stream indigenous grassland. This included strains belonging to the orders Chroococcales, Oscillatoriales and Nostocales. UniFrac analysis showed that the cyanobacterial populations were significantly different between burnt and unburnt soils. In addition, we outline the different techniques used to investigate cyanobacterial diversity and the role of cyanobacteria in providing fixed nitrogen into terrestrial ecosystems. Approaches include classical techniques of isolating cyanobacteria on selective media as well as traditional culture-independent methods involving DNA fingerprinting and/or analysis of molecular markers, including the use of polymerase chain reaction amplification in combination with Sanger sequencing to assess phylogenetic diversity in ecosystems. These labour intensive approaches are often limited by the number of samples that can be analysed. Advances in microarrays and highthroughput sequencing technologies now enable in-depth analysis at a lower cost and allow variations in microbial communities to be detected at different taxonomic levels. We compare the advantages and limitations of both traditional and new approaches.

Organic Farming Improves Soil Microbial Abundance and Diversity under Greenhouse Condition: A Case Study in Shanghai (Eastern China)

“…Members belonging to Planctomycetes have been reported as major groups to decompose heteropolysaccharide [39] and chitin [40] and are involved in the C cycle in soils, which might be related to the highest Ctot content being in OP soil. OTUs from Cyanobacteria are photoautotrophs and play key roles in biogeochemical processes in nature and improve the turnover of C and N in the soil [41]. In addition, we also observed that the archaeal phylum Crenarchaeota was significantly increased in CP.…”

“…and Pseudoxanthomonas spp. have been shown as N fixers [41,42]. OTUs within the genera Glycomyces and Leptolyngbya could inhibit other pathogens by producing antibiotics (e.g., streptomycin) [43,44].…”

Substratum‐Associated Microbiota

“…Two new families, Tolypothrichaceae and Godleyaceae, were established to reflect phylogenetic findings after a molecular assessment of the Microchaetaceae (Hauer et al, 2014). New Zealand indigenous grasslands explored with both traditional and molecular techniques, contained eight taxonomical units of cyanobacteria that differed between burned and unburned soil (Chua et al, 2014). Rather than temperature or time, an increase in periphyton biomass, correlated with an increase in total macroinvertebrate biomass and abundance of scrapers in stream reaches located along a disturbance gradient of canopy cover and with agriculturally derived nutrients (Braccia et al, 2014).…”

Algal and cyanobacterial bioenergy and diversity

“…grandicosta. The work by Chua et al (2014), from the Department of Botany at Otago University, reviews the current knowledge of cyanobacterial diversity in New Zealand's indigenous tussock grasslands and outlines the different techniques available to investigate cyanobacterial diversity in terrestrial ecosystems -the authors provide a comparison of the advantages and limitations of both traditional approaches, such as isolating strains on selective media, with more recent developments utilising high-throughput sequencing technologies.…”