Seasonal and altitudinal changes of culturable bacterial and yeast diversity in Alpine forest soils

Abstract

The effect of altitude and season on abundance and diversity of the culturable heterotrophic bacterial and yeast community was examined at four forest sites in the Italian Alps along an altitude gradient (545–2000 m). Independently of altitude, bacteria isolated at 0 °C (psychrophiles) were less numerous than those recovered at 20 °C. In autumn, psychrophilic bacterial population increased with altitude. The 1194 bacterial strains were primarily affiliated with the classes Alpha-, Beta-, Gammaproteobacteria, Spingobacteriia and Flavobacteriia. Fifty-seven of 112 operational taxonomic units represented potential novel species. Strains isolated at 20 °C had a higher diversity and showed similarities in taxa composition and abundance, regardless of altitude or season, while strains isolated at 0 °C showed differences in community composition at lower and higher altitudes. In contrast to bacteria, yeast diversity was season-dependent: site- and altitude-specific effects on yeast diversity were only detected in spring. Isolation temperature affected the relative proportions of yeast genera. Isolations recovered 719 strains, belonging to the classes Dothideomycetes, Saccharomycetes, Tremellomycetes and Mycrobotryomycetes. The presence of few dominant bacterial OTUs and yeast species indicated a resilient microbial population that is not affected by season or altitude. Soil nutrient contents influenced significantly abundance and diversity of culturable bacteria, but not of culturable yeasts.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00792-016-0874-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Diversity of yeasts in the soil adjacent to fruit trees of the Rosaceae family

“…The rare yeast species formed 28% to 61% of the total yeast population associated with the soil of individual fruit tree species. Our results corroborate other authors' findings on the proportions of rare yeasts isolated from forest, grassland, and shrubland soils (França et al, ; Vishniac, ; Yurkov et al, ) and show that they can be considered common members of soil yeast microbiota.…”

“…The present study discovered Apiotrichum species in the soil adjacent to the fruit trees in all samplings, over the 3 years, in both localities, and confirms their widespreadness. However, S. podzolica , Solicoccozyma aeria and Goffeauzyma gastrica , which also dominate the yeast microbiota in soil (França, Sannino, Turchetti, Buzzini, & Margesin, ; Groenewald et al, ; Yurkov, ), were isolated only rarely, similar to the results obtained with urban soil in Russia (Tepeeva et al, ).…”

Evaluation of multifarious plant growth promoting traits, antagonistic potential and phylogenetic affiliation of rhizobacteria associated with commercial tea plants grown in Darjeeling, India

“…The culture dependent method has some limitations such as many species fail to grow on the plate surface at all of a given medium and may be the dominant species on the plate surface are less which underestimate the richness of the sample [ 50 ]. Though the culturable techniques have some limitations to estimate the microbial population in environmental samples, however, it has the potential to demonstrate to retrieve both abundant and rare taxa in different environmental samples [ 51 ]. Thirty three representative isolates were selected from each group of the dendrogram generated by BOX-PCR genotyping and ARDRA profile, and they were identified by 16S rRNA gene sequencing.…”

Yeast species and strains differing along an altitudinal gradient in the Brazilian forest domain

“…Yeast species play an important ecological role; they participate in processes such as decomposition of organic matter, soil aggregation, nutrient cycling in the soil (e.g., phosphate solubilization), biocontrol of soil pathogens, and plant growth promotion (Botha, 2011). Yeasts species occur in a wide range of different types of soil in the world (Stringini et al, 2008;Mestre et al, 2011;Yurkov et al, 2012a;Glushakova et al, 2015;França et al, 2016). Our knowledge about soil yeasts is biased towards temperate and boreal forests.…”

“…It is important to point out that these authors focused only on soil filamentous fungi, whereas the distribution and dispersion abilities of yeast fungi can be different. With regard to the effect of altitude on soil yeast, França et al (2016) observed that the yeast species composition altered along an altitude gradient in Alpine forest soils during the spring season. However, the Brazilian forests differ substantially from Subalpine forest community in terms of species diversity, climate, and seasonality.…”