Diverse populations of lake water bacteria exhibit chemotaxis towards inorganic nutrients |
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| Authors: | Paul G Dennis Justin Seymour Kimber Kumbun Gene W Tyson |
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| Institution: | 1.Australian Centre for Ecogenomics, School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia;2.Advanced Water Management Centre, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia;3.Plant Functional Biology and Climate Change Cluster, University of Technology, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia |
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| Abstract: | Chemotaxis allows microorganisms to rapidly respond to different environmental stimuli; however, understanding of this process is limited by conventional assays, which typically focus on the response of single axenic cultures to given compounds. In this study, we used a modified capillary assay coupled with flow cytometry and 16S rRNA gene amplicon pyrosequencing to enumerate and identify populations within a lake water microbial community that exhibited chemotaxis towards ammonium, nitrate and phosphate. All compounds elicited chemotactic responses from populations within the lake water, with members of Sphingobacteriales exhibiting the strongest responses to nitrate and phosphate, and representatives of the Variovorax, Actinobacteria ACK-M1 and Methylophilaceae exhibiting the strongest responses to ammonium. Our results suggest that chemotaxis towards inorganic substrates may influence the rates of biogeochemical processes. |
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| Keywords: | chemotaxis microbial communities 16S rRNA gene inorganic substrates |
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