Accounting for soil respiration variability - Case study in a Mediterranean pine-dominated forest.

The number of spots to monitor to evaluate soil respiration (Rs) is often chosen on an empirical or conventional basis. To obtain an insight into the necessary number of spots to account for Rs variability in a Mediterranean pine-dominated mixed forest, we measured Rs all year long on sixteen dates with a portable gas-analyser in 50 spots per date within an area 1/3 ha wide. Linear mixed-effects models with soil temperature and litter moisture as descriptors, were fitted to the collected data and then evaluated in a Monte Carlo simulation on a progressively decreasing number of spots to identify the minimum number required to estimate Rs with a given confidence interval. We found that monitoring less than 14 spots would have resulted in a 10% probability of not fitting the model, while monitoring 20 spots would have reduced the same probability to about 5% and was the best compromise between field efforts and quality of the results. A simple rainfall index functional to select sampling dates during the summer drought is proposed.

Exploring the dynamics of bacterial community composition in soil: the pan-bacteriome approach.

We performed a longitudinal study (repeated observations of the same sample over time) to investigate both the composition and structure of temporal changes of bacterial community composition in soil mesocosms, subjected to three different treatments (water and 5 or 25 mg kg(-1) of dried soil Cd(2+)). By analogy with the pan genome concept, we identified a core bacteriome and an accessory bacteriome. Resident taxa were assigned to the core bacteriome, while occasional taxa were assigned to the accessory bacteriome. Core and accessory bacteriome represented roughly 35 and 50 % of the taxa detected, respectively, and were characterized by different taxonomic signatures from phylum to genus level while 15 % of the taxa were found to be unique to a particular sample. In particular, the core bacteriome was characterized by higher abundance of members of Planctomycetes, Actinobacteria, Verrucomicrobia and Acidobacteria, while the accessory bacteriome included more members of Firmicutes, Clamydiae and Proteobacteria, suggesting potentially different responses to environmental changes of members from these phyla. We conclude that the pan-bacteriome model may be a useful approach to gain insight for modeling bacterial community structure and inferring different abilities of bacteria taxa.

Upward movement of Verticillium dahliae from soil to olive plants detected by qPCR.

Olive trees play an important role in cultural, ecological, environmental and social fields, constituting in large part the Mediterranean landscape. In Tuscany, an important economic activity is based on olive. Unfortunately, the Verticillium wilt affects this species and causes vascular disease. In the present study, a real-time quantitative PCR approach has been used to detect and quantify Verticillium dahliae in soil and in olive tree tissues both in micropropagated and in seedling olives. The minimum amounts of V. dahliae DNA sequences detected in soil were 11.4 fg which is equivalent to less than one fungal haploid genome. In micropropagated olive the pathogen was detected in the leaves after 43 days, showing a vertical upward movement of the fungus from the culture medium to stem and leaves. A similar fungal behaviour was observed in inoculated olive stem where after 15 days the fungal DNA was detected from symptomless stem tissue above 8 cm the inoculation site. The described molecular approach is expected to provide a more sensitive and less time-consuming alternative detection method for V. dahliae than plating assay procedures, which were traditionally proposed as an early diagnosis method for Verticillium wilt to farmers and tree nursery growers.

Experimental discrimination and molecular characterization of the extracellular soil DNA fraction.

We experimentally discriminated and qualitatively-quantitatively characterized the extracellular fraction of a forest soil DNA pool. We sequentially extracted and classified the components of extracellular DNA by its strength of interaction with soil colloids as: (1) extractable in water, free in the extracellular soil environment or adsorbed on soil colloids; and as (2) extractable in alkaline buffer after previous extraction in water, bound on soil colloids. The comparative molecular analysis (fluorometer, gel electrophoresis, genetic fingerprinting) of directly and sequentially extracted extracellular DNA revealed quantitative and qualitative differences, also in terms of genetic information about microbial communities. The sequential extraction of extracellular DNA revealed differences in molecular weight, indicating a relationship between DNA fragment length and strength of interaction with soil colloids. The sequential extraction was also suitable to assess the presence of tightly bound DNA, providing information about the DNA-colloid interactions naturally occurring in the soil environment.