Impact of Land-use on Biogeographical Diversity of Soil Prokaryotes and their Functional Links to Atmospheric Chemistry

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Harold L. Drake
• Subject Area: Ecology and Biodiversity of Plants and Ecosystems
• Term: from 2008 to 2011
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 61396413

The functional biodiversity and differential regulation of subpopulations of prokaryotic biomes associated with atmospheric chemistry will be investigated. The study will address the question “What determines what one gets?” with a comprehensive, integrative experimental design that will evaluate soils under contrasting land-use. The objectives are to (a) assess denitrifier and methylotroph diversities by complementary cultivation and functional gene analyses, (b) determine the effect of land-use on activities of denitrifiers and methylotrophs, (c) identify active denitrifiers and methylotrophs by mRNA analyses and stable isotope probing, (d) identify novel genotypes, (e) resolve temporal/spatial variations in community structures and develop a diagnostic functional gene microarray, and (f) establish a functional gene-based ‘ecotype concept’ for denitrifiers and methylotrophs. An additional outcome will be the improvement of methods for the assessment of these functional groups. By correlating data on functional diversity and activity with the database on in situ soil parameters of the biodiversity exploratories, this work will also increase our understanding of how prokaryotic diversity impacts on ecosystem function and provide insight into factors that might drive prokaryotic speciation.

• DFG Programme: Infrastructure Priority Programmes
• Subproject of: SPP 1374: Biodiversity Exploratories
• Participating Persons: Professor Dr. Marcus A. Horn; Professor Dr. Steffen Kolb