Líffræðifélag Íslands - biologia.is
Líffræðiráðstefnan 2019

Erindi/veggspjald / Talk/poster V25

Bacterial community structure of a liverwort dominated biological soil crust

Höfundar / Authors: Rúna Björk Smáradóttir (1), Ólafur S. Andrésson (1)

Starfsvettvangur / Affiliations: Háskóli Íslands, Líf- og umhverfisvísindastofnun

Kynnir / Presenter: Rúna Björk Smáradóttir

Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) are communities of lichens, bryophytes, non-lichenized fungi, algae and prokaryotes that live within or immediately on top of the uppermost millimeters of soil. Soil particles are aggregated through the presence and activity of the living organisms. Over 25% of cryptogam coverage in the Icelandic highlands is biocrust characterized by the leafy liverwort Anthelia juratzkana. The aim of this project is to analyze the bacterial composition of this biocrust.
Samples of the biocrust were collected at various sites in the highlands. Shotgun metagenome analysis was performed on DNA samples from the surface of the biocrust and at a depth of 15 mm using the Illumina Nextera and MiSeq platforms. Unassembled reads were uploaded to the Kaiju and MG-Rast servers for analysis.
About 90-95% of the reads could be assigned to Bacteria. On the phylum level Proteobacteria are predominant but a large part of the reads can be assigned to Acidobacteria and Actinobacteria. Cyanobacteria represent about 4% of bacterial reads. The most common taxa on the genus level are Candidatus Solibacter, Ktedonobacter and Bradyrhizobium. Analysis of DNA samples taken at 15 mm depth indicates differences in bacterial composition compared to samples from the surface e.g. in the abundance of Cyanobacteria. No significant seasonal difference was detected.