TY - JOUR

T1 - Impact of phages on soil bacterial communities and nitrogen availability under different assembly scenarios

AU - Braga, Lucas P. P.

AU - Spor, Ayme

AU - Kot, Witold

AU - Breuil, Marie-Christine

AU - Hansen, Lars H.

AU - Setubal, Joao C.

AU - Philippot, Laurent

PY - 2020

Y1 - 2020

N2 - Background Bacteriophages, the viruses infecting bacteria, are biological entities that can control their host populations. The ecological relevance of phages for microbial systems has been widely explored in aquatic environments, but the current understanding of the role of phages in terrestrial ecosystems remains limited. Here, our objective was to quantify the extent to which phages drive the assembly and functioning of soil bacterial communities. We performed a reciprocal transplant experiment using natural and sterilized soil incubated with different combinations of two soil microbial communities, challenged against native and non-native phage suspensions as well as against a cocktail of phage isolates. We tested three different community assembly scenarios by adding phages: (a) during soil colonization, (b) after colonization, and (c) in natural soil communities. One month after inoculation with phage suspensions, bacterial communities were assessed by 16S rRNA amplicon gene sequencing. Results By comparing the treatments inoculated with active versus autoclaved phages, our results show that changes in phage pressure have the potential to impact soil bacterial community composition and diversity. We also found a positive effect of active phages on the soil ammonium concentration in a few treatments, which indicates that increased phage pressure may also be important for soil functions. Conclusions Overall, the present work contributes to expand the current knowledge about soil phages and provide some empirical evidence supporting their relevance for soil bacterial community assembly and functioning.

AB - Background Bacteriophages, the viruses infecting bacteria, are biological entities that can control their host populations. The ecological relevance of phages for microbial systems has been widely explored in aquatic environments, but the current understanding of the role of phages in terrestrial ecosystems remains limited. Here, our objective was to quantify the extent to which phages drive the assembly and functioning of soil bacterial communities. We performed a reciprocal transplant experiment using natural and sterilized soil incubated with different combinations of two soil microbial communities, challenged against native and non-native phage suspensions as well as against a cocktail of phage isolates. We tested three different community assembly scenarios by adding phages: (a) during soil colonization, (b) after colonization, and (c) in natural soil communities. One month after inoculation with phage suspensions, bacterial communities were assessed by 16S rRNA amplicon gene sequencing. Results By comparing the treatments inoculated with active versus autoclaved phages, our results show that changes in phage pressure have the potential to impact soil bacterial community composition and diversity. We also found a positive effect of active phages on the soil ammonium concentration in a few treatments, which indicates that increased phage pressure may also be important for soil functions. Conclusions Overall, the present work contributes to expand the current knowledge about soil phages and provide some empirical evidence supporting their relevance for soil bacterial community assembly and functioning.

KW - POTENTIAL BIOGEOCHEMICAL IMPACTS

KW - STRANDED-DNA VIRUSES

KW - ANTAGONISTIC COEVOLUTION

KW - PARASITE DIVERSITY

KW - MARINE VIRUSES

KW - METAGENOMES

KW - ECOSYSTEMS

KW - INFECTION

KW - ABUNDANCE

KW - ALIGNMENT

U2 - 10.1186/s40168-020-00822-z

DO - 10.1186/s40168-020-00822-z

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 32252805

VL - 8

JO - Microbiome

JF - Microbiome

SN - 2049-2618

IS - 1

M1 - 52

ER -