Print PageThe National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) is a national-scale research platform for analyzing and understanding the impacts of climate change, land-use change, and invasive species on ecology. Soil microbes (bacteria, archaea, and fungi) play key roles in many of the processes that constitute NEON's grand challenge areas. To better understand the biogeography of soil microbes, a prototype was designed to measure temporal and spatial variability in microbial community composition within and among four eco-climatic regions over an annual cycle. The prototype focused on four NEON domains that represent gradients in mean annual temperature and precipitation including Southeast (Domain 3, Florida), Great Basin (Domain 15, Utah), Taiga (Domain 19, Alaska), and Pacific Tropical (Domain 20, Hawaii).
Results/Conclusions
Phylogenetic and functional gene analyses were conducted on archived soil core samples collected five times over an annual cycle from four NEON domains. Sequences and analyses of 16S and 18S rRNA genes to identify soil bacterial, archaeal and fungal diversity and community structure were generated through 454 pyrosequencing using titanium protocol. Preliminary results show that communities cluster by eco-region and there is no distinct seasonal trend. Concurrent analyses exploring functional nifH gene (for nitrogenase) abundance and soil biogeochemistry will help relate community composition with specific functions. We discuss considerations of metadata collection, sample archiving, and data quality control and assurance to capture long-term spatial and temporal trends in microbial communities.
