By: Francisco Montaner
This image illustrates an urban greenspace. Picture by: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cities-pledge-more-green-space-to-combat-urban-heat
Urban greenspaces are open space areas that provide natural or landscaped environments within cities, such as parks and gardens, offering ecological, social, and health benefits to residents. However, in arid environments these greenspaces are designed using a global model which are not suitable for arid environments. These models when applied potentially affects microbial communities and favors certain genes. In this experiment, the authors will assess bacterial and viral genomic data to determine difference within both environments. The authors collected soil samples from two urban parks and twelve ecosystem-representative sites. They then extracted DNA from these samples and were sequenced for bacterial and viral characterization. The results showed that viral abundance was higher in natural soils; however, the ratio of virulent to temperate viruses was slightly higher in urban soils. On the other hand, bacteria in urban soils had overall smaller genome sizes, and the abundance of heavy metal resistance genes was higher compared to natural soils. Contrary to this, the abundance of antibiotic resistance genes was not marginally different between both urban and natural soils. Additionally, in urban soils bacterial DNA had a higher abundance of denitrification genes than natural soils. This research is important because it highlights how bacteria and viruses differ between natural and landscaped environments, and how human activity can influence the way these communities are shaped.
Original article :
Touceda-Suárez M, Ponsero AJ, Barberán A. 2025 Jul 15. Differences in the genomic potential of soil bacterial and viral communities between urban greenspaces and natural arid soils. Spear JR, editor. Applied and Environmental Microbiology. doi:https://doi.org/10.1128/aem.02124-24.
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