Pyrosequencing enumerates and contrasts soil microbial diversity

Estimates of the number of species of bacteria per gram of soil vary between 2000 and 8.3 million (Gans et al., 2005; Schloss and Handelsman, 2006). The highest estimate suggests that the number may be so large as to be impractical to test by amplification and sequencing of the highly conserved 16S rRNA gene from soil DNA (Gans et al., 2005). Here we present the use of high throughput DNA pyrosequencing and statistical inference to assess bacterial diversity in four soils across a large transect of the western hemisphere. The number of bacterial 16S rRNA sequences obtained from each site varied from 26,140 to 53,533. The most abundant bacterial groups in all four soils were the Bacteroidetes,…

• NS
  National Science Foundation

  Awards: 0540745, 0454030, MCB-0454030
• UD
  U.S. Department of Agriculture

  Award: 2005-35319-16300
• CD
  Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior
• CN
  Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico
• FD
  Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul
• MD
  Ministério da Educação