Predicting the Distribution of Bacteria in Current and Future Environmental Conditions.

 By: Roxana Montiel

                                   

The figure represents the different percentage of phyla that were found within the sites, according to elevation  and the results based on predictions for the future. The first graph at the top represents current conditions, and the next three columns represent future environmental conditions, including climate change and combinations of changes in pH (decrease, increase or stable), and amounts of total organic carbon amounts. 

        pH is the primary driver of bacterial communities in soil and additions of gases in the atmosphere, such as nitrogen and atmospheric sulfur, are affecting the general acidification of the soil. These gases do not only affect the pH of the soil but also alters the amount of organic carbon found. This article focuses on the prediction of space and geographical arrangement patterns of soil bacteria during current and future conditions of the environment, regarding pH and contents of the soil, climate, and topography. 268 sample sites were determined for this research, but only 255 obtained all the environmental variables that differentiated the sample sites. In these sites, temporal pH changes and organic carbon amounts were calculated by obtaining samples from soil surveys done in 1970 and 2016 to understand the changes in these variables and to make predictions for the future. The results were based on the soil bacteria that was found among the sample sites; they explain that the correlation between observed samples and predicted samples varies between the different bacterial communities and the models that they implemented. Mod and colleagues mention that frequently occurring bacterial communities have a better performance than rare communities. In addition, the results showed that pH had the highest level of importance among all the bacterial communities found. This research is important and should be carried on in future studies in order to determine the changes in soil and the bacteria that are present, addressing changes in the environment, alkalinization, acidification, and soil pH. 

Reference

Mod, K. H., Buri, A., Yashiro, E., Guex, N., Malard, L., Pinto-Figueroa, E., Pagni, M., Niculita-Hirzel, H., Roelof van der Meer, J., and Guisan, A. (2021) Predicting spatial patterns of soil bacteria under current and future environmental conditions. The ISME Journal 15:2547-2560.