Bacterial life history strategies in gamma-irradiated arable soil receiving different microbial inocula

FARKOVÁ, Karolína

Soil contains an extraordinary level of microbial biodiversity that supports key ecosystem functions. Understanding how soil microbial communities assemble in agricultural ecosystems, as well as what traits they exhibit (i.e., what functions and services they mediate), is essential to better predict the consequences of biodiversity loss. This thesis analyzes the composition, diversity, and life history strategies of soil bacterial communities after the introduction of microbial communities from different sources (i.e., soil and cow excreta) into sterile soil (-irradiated). The results show that bacteria from soil and excreta successfully established in the -irradiated soil and that the bacterial composition and diversity strongly depends on the inoculation source. Analyses of selected functional traits proved that early colonizer taxa were characterized by having higher 16S rRNA copy numbers, smaller genomes and elevated motility and sporulation abilities than the original soil bacterial community. In addition, despite the soils showing similar initial physicochemical and biochemical properties, the different bacterial assemblages generated strong differences in soil properties and microbially-mediated functions. This thesis contributes to a better understanding on how the composition of microbial community is important for the microbial biodiversity in soil and in turn, how biodiversity can contribute to changes in soil fertility and bacterial activity through different life history strategies and traits.

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