Artículos de revistas
Bacterial diversity and occurrence of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria in the Atacama Desert soil during a "desert bloom" event
Fecha
2010-04-08Registro en:
SOIL BIOLOGY & BIOCHEMISTRY, Volume: 42, Issue: 7, Pages: 1183-1188, 2010
0038-0717
Autor
Orlando, Julieta Laura
Alfaro, Marco
Bravo, Lorena
Guevara, Rafael
Carú Marambio, Margarita
Institución
Resumen
The Atacama Desert, located in northern Chile, is one of the driest deserts on the Earth. However, in some
years, short and sporadic rainfall in the southern end of this desert has increased the soil moisture that
produces ephemeral “desert bloom”. Our goal was to assess the composition of the bacterial community
and determine variations in the ammonia-oxidizing bacteria guild diversity from soils collected during
the course of the “desert bloom” event. The bacterial composition from this arid soil was determined by
cloning and sequencing the 16S rRNA gene. A relatively high diversity of clones belonging to 14 bacterial
groups was detected. The ammonia-oxidizers showed a significantly higher diversity of amoA gene
clones after the “desert bloom” than during or at the beginning of this event. All sequences obtained
were related to Nitrosospira genera and environmental clones. These results suggest that the diversity of
ammonia-oxidizing bacteria in this arid soil can be affected by the occurrence of “desert bloom”.