Pollution, changing plant communities, and bacteria

What is it about?

Due to pollution, nitrogen (N) deposition in alpine tundra around the world is dramatically increasing, which could have important consequences for these delicate ecosystems. Moist meadow alpine tundra at Niwot Ridge in Colorado is dominated by a grass, which is favored by N enrichment, and a rose which declines under N enrichment. Previous studies have shown competition between these plants is not responsible for the contrasting responses to N. We examine whether root bacterial communities are affected by N enrichment in these two plants, and whether bacteria could be responsible for plant response to N.

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Why is it important?

We use Next Generation Sequencing technologies to assess the bacterial communities associated with these plants. These technologies are still extremely new, allowing unprecedented descriptions of microbial communities in any environment. Microbial communities of these plants have not been described before. Our results indicate root microbiomes could play a powerful role in determining how plants respond to environmental changes. We found complex interactions between plant host, plant neighbors, N, and microbial communities. Interestingly, neighboring plants can determine how one plant's root microbes responds to changing N, which has not been shown before. This means that how plant-microbe relationships respond to the environment will change as the plant community changes.

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