16 research outputs found
Microbial carbon use efficiency: accounting for population, community, and ecosystem-scale controls over the fate of metabolized organic matter
Microbial carbon use efficiency (CUE) is a critical regulator of soil organic matter dynamics and terrestrial carbon fluxes, with strong implications for soil biogeochemistry models. While ecologists increasingly appreciate the importance of CUE, its core concepts remain ambiguous: terminology is inconsistent and confusing, methods capture variable temporal and spatial scales, and the significance of many fundamental drivers remains inconclusive. Here we outline the processes underlying microbial efficiency and propose a conceptual framework that structures the definition of CUE according to increasingly broad temporal and spatial drivers where (1) CUEP reflects population-scale carbon use efficiency of microbes governed by species-specific metabolic and thermodynamic constraints, (2) CUEC defines community-scale microbial efficiency as gross biomass production per unit substrate taken up over short time scales, largely excluding recycling of microbial necromass and exudates, and (3) CUEE reflects the ecosystem-scale efficiency of net microbial biomass production (growth) per unit substrate taken up as iterative breakdown and recycling of microbial products occurs. CUEE integrates all internal and extracellular constraints on CUE and hence embodies an ecosystem perspective that fully captures all drivers of microbial biomass synthesis and decay. These three definitions are distinct yet complementary, capturing the capacity for carbon storage in microbial biomass across different ecological scales. By unifying the existing concepts and terminology underlying microbial efficiency, our framework enhances data interpretation and theoretical advances
Variability and Host Density Independence in Inductions-based Estimates of Environmental Lysogeny
Temperate bacterial viruses (phages) may enter a symbiosis with their host cell, forming a unit called a lysogen. Infection and viral replication are disassociated in lysogens until an induction event such as DNA damage occurs, triggering viral-mediated lysis. The lysogen–lytic viral reproduction switch is central to viral ecology, with diverse ecosystem impacts. It has been argued that lysogeny is favoured in phages at low host densities. This paradigm is based on the fraction of chemically inducible cells (FCIC) lysogeny proxy determined using DNA-damaging mitomycin C inductions. Contrary to the established paradigm, a survey of 39 inductions publications found FCIC to be highly variable and pervasively insensitive to bacterial host density at global, within-environment and within-study levels. Attempts to determine the source(s) of variability highlighted the inherent complications in using the FCIC proxy in mixed communities, including dissociation between rates of lysogeny and FCIC values. Ultimately, FCIC studies do not provide robust measures of lysogeny or consistent evidence of either positive or negative host density dependence to the lytic–lysogenic switch. Other metrics are therefore needed to understand the drivers of the lytic–lysogenic decision in viral communities and to test models of the host density-dependent viral lytic–lysogenic switch
Changes in thermal and oxygen stratification pattern coupled to CO2 outgassing persistence in two oligotrophic shallow lakes of the Atlantic Tropical Forest, Southeast Brazil
Influence of incubation conditions on bacterial production estimates in an estuarine system
This study aimed to assess the influence of
incubation conditions in the determination of bacterial
production (BP). In order to achieve that goal,
experimental setups were performed in situ and in
the laboratory under both dark and light conditions. To
test spatial and seasonal variations and the different
natural light exposure of microorganisms, sampling
was performed in two distinct zones of the estuary Ria
de Aveiro (Portugal), typifying the marine and brackish
water zones of the estuarine system. Denaturing
gradient gel electrophoresis analysis of 16S rRNA
gene fragments was used to monitor possible alterations
in bacterial community composition induced by
the incubation conditions. The results showed that BP
determined in situ conditions significantly differed
from in the laboratory. In the marine zone, a defined
pattern of variation was detected, with consistent
higher values of BP in laboratory dark conditions. This
trend was not present in the brackish water zone. The
seasonal and spatial variability of BP observed in field
incubations was related to the physical–chemical
proprieties of the water column, irradiance levels
and the original community composition. The
metabolic active profiles of bacteria were substantially
different in the several incubation conditions, suggesting
that methodological procedure influences the
bacterial community composition, and the values of
BP reported for aquatic ecosystems could be quite
different from the real ones. In the light of these
results, we suggest that BP determinations should be
conducted under in situ conditions. However, due to
execution limitations, BP needs to be frequently
determined in the laboratory, and in this case, dark
incubations provide more approximate values. This is
the method routinely used, and although this incubation
condition can cause stimulation of BP, the
structure of the bacterial community is more similar
to the one obtained with the in situ incubations