Search results for "ECOSYSTEM"
showing 10 items of 1752 documents
Selecting Microbial Strains from Pine Tree Resin: Biotechnological Applications from a Terpene World
2014
Resin is a chemical and physical defensive barrier secreted by many plants, especially coniferous trees, with insecticidal and antimicrobial properties. The degradation of terpenes, the main components accounting for the toxicity of resin, is highly relevant for a vast range of biotechnological processes, including bioremediation. In the present work, we used a resin-based selective medium in order to study the resin-tolerant microbial communities associated with the galls formed by the moth Retinia resinella; as well as resin from Pinus sylvestris forests, one of the largest ecosystems on Earth and a yet-unexplored source of terpene-degrading microorganisms. The taxonomic and functional di…
Manganese/polymetallic nodules: Micro-structural characterization of exolithobiontic- and endolithobiontic microbial biofilms by scanning electron mi…
2009
Polymetallic/ferromanganese nodules (Mn-nodules) provide a rich source for manganese. It is not yet known if the nodules have a biogenic or an abiogenic origin. Here we applied the technique of high-resolution scanning electron microscopy, in combination with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopical (EDX) analysis, to trace the existence of microbial biofilms. Two spatially separated assemblies exist, the exolithobiontic- and endolithobiontic colonizations. The exolithobiontic colonization is seen in the micro-canals, which traverse the outer surface layer of the nodules and are formed by elongated filamentous organisms, which show no signs of mineralization. In the center of the nodules thr…
Monitoring complex bacterial communities using culture-independent molecular techniques: application to soil environment
2000
Over the last decade, important advances in molecular biology led to the development of culture-independent approaches to describing bacterial communities. These new strategies, based on the analysis of DNA directly extracted from environmental samples, circumvent the steps of isolation and culturing of bacteria, which are known for their selectivity leading to a non-representative view of the extent of bacterial diversity. This review provides an overview of the potentials and limitations of some molecular approaches currently used in microbial ecology. Examples of applications to the study of indigenous soil microbial community illustrate the feasibility and the power of such approaches.
Acidobacteria dominate the active bacterial communities of Arctic tundra with widely divergent winter-time snow accumulation and soil temperatures.
2012
The timing and extent of snow cover is a major controller of soil temperature and hence winter-time microbial activity and plant diversity in Arctic tundra ecosystems. To understand how snow dynamics shape the bacterial communities, we analyzed the bacterial community composition of windswept and snow-accumulating shrub-dominated tundra heaths of northern Finland using DNA- and RNA-based 16S rRNA gene community fingerprinting (terminal restriction fragment polymorphism) and clone library analysis. Members of the Acidobacteria and Proteobacteria dominated the bacterial communities of both windswept and snow-accumulating habitats with the most abundant phylotypes corresponding to subdivision …
Draft genome of a novel methanotrophic Methylobacter sp. from the volcanic soils of Pantelleria Island
2021
AbstractThe genus Methylobacter is considered an important and often dominant group of aerobic methane-oxidizing bacteria in many oxic ecosystems, where members of this genus contribute to the reduction of CH4 emissions. Metagenomic studies of the upper oxic layers of geothermal soils of the Favara Grande, Pantelleria, Italy, revealed the presence of various methane-oxidizing bacteria, and resulted in a near complete metagenome assembled genome (MAG) of an aerobic methanotroph, which was classified as a Methylobacter species. In this study, the Methylobacter sp. B2 MAG was used to investigate its metabolic potential and phylogenetic affiliation. The MAG has a size of 4,086,539 bp, consists …
Description of Alcanivorax venustensis sp. nov. and reclassification of Fundibacter jadensis DSM 12178T (Bruns and Berthe-Corti 1999) as Alcanivorax …
2003
Two strains of a novel bacterium were isolated independently of each other, from different depths in the Mediterranean Sea, within a time period of 7 months, using two different isolation approaches that were focused on different objectives. Both strains, designated ISO1 and ISO4T, were halophilic, Gram-negative, strictly aerobic, straight rods that were oxidase- and catalase-positive. Both strains produced mucoid colonies in some defined minimal media and were able to grow with organic acids and some alkanes; they were also able to accumulate intracellular poly-beta-hydroxybutyrate granules. The G + C content of the DNA of strain ISO4T was 66 mol%. Comparative analysis of 16S rRNA gene seq…
Key roles for freshwater A ctinobacteria revealed by deep metagenomic sequencing
2014
Freshwater ecosystems are critical but fragile environments directly affecting society and its welfare. However, our understanding of genuinely freshwater microbial communities, constrained by our capacity to manipulate its prokaryotic participants in axenic cultures, remains very rudimentary. Even the most abundant components, freshwater Actinobacteria, remain largely unknown. Here, applying deep metagenomic sequencing to the microbial community of a freshwater reservoir, we were able to circumvent this traditional bottleneck and reconstruct de novo seven distinct streamlined actinobacterial genomes. These genomes represent three new groups of photoheterotrophic, planktonic Actinobacteria.…
Yeast Population Dynamics during the Fermentation and Biological Aging of Sherry Wines
2001
ABSTRACTMolecular and physiological analyses were used to study the evolution of the yeast population, from alcoholic fermentation to biological aging in the process of “fino” sherry wine making. The four races of “flor”Saccharomyces cerevisiae (beticus, cheresiensis, montuliensis, androuxii) exhibited identical restriction patterns for the region spanning the internal transcribed spacers 1 and 2 (ITS-1 and ITS-2) and the 5.8S rRNA gene, but this pattern was different, from those exhibited by non-florS. cerevisiaestrains. This flor-specific pattern was detected only after wines were fortified, never during alcoholic fermentation, and all the strains isolated from the velum exhibited the typ…
Characterization of Bacterial and Fungal Soil Communities by Automated Ribosomal Intergenic Spacer Analysis Fingerprints: Biological and Methodologic…
2001
ABSTRACT Automated rRNA intergenic spacer analysis (ARISA) was used to characterise bacterial (B-ARISA) and fungal (F-ARISA) communities from different soil types. The 16S-23S intergenic spacer region from the bacterial rRNA operon was amplified from total soil community DNA for B-ARISA. Similarly, the two internal transcribed spacers and the 5.8S rRNA gene (ITS1-5.8S-ITS2) from the fungal rRNA operon were amplified from total soil community DNA for F-ARISA. Universal fluorescence-labeled primers were used for the PCRs, and fragments of between 200 and 1,200 bp were resolved on denaturing polyacrylamide gels by use of an automated sequencer with laser detection. Methodological (DNA extracti…
Comparison of different primer sets for use in Automated Ribosomal Intergenic Spacer Analysis of complex bacterial communities.
2004
ABSTRACT ITSF and ITSReub, constituting a new primer set designed for the amplification of the 16S-23S rRNA intergenic transcribed spacers, have been compared with primer sets consisting of 1406F and 23Sr (M. M. Fisher and E. W. Triplett, Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 65:4630-4636, 1999) and S-D-Bact-1522-b-S-20 and L-D-Bact-132-a-A-18 (L. Ranjard et al., Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 67:4479-4487, 2001), previously proposed for automated ribosomal intergenic spacer analysis (ARISA) of complex bacterial communities. An agricultural soil and a polluted soil, maize silage, goat milk, a small marble sample from the façade of the Certosa of Pavia (Pavia, Italy), and brine from a deep hypersaline anoxi…