A comprehensive survey of soil acidobacterial diversity using pyrosequencing and clone library analyses

Acidobacteria are ubiquitous and abundant members of soil bacterial communities. However, an ecological understanding of this important phylum has remained elusive because its members have been difficult to culture and few molecular investigations have focused exclusively on this group. We generated an unprecedented number of acidobacterial DNA sequence data using pyrosequencing and clone libraries (39,707 and 1787 sequences, respectively) to characterize the relative abundance, diversity and composition of acidobacterial communities across a range of soil types. To gain insight into the ecological characteristics of acidobacterial taxa, we investigated the large-scale biogeographic patterns exhibited by…

• NS
  National Science Foundation

  Awards: 0455606, MCB-0455606
• AW
  Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
• NI
  National Institutes of Health

  Award: T32GM065103
• OO
  Office of International Science and Engineering