Characterization of bacterial diversity between two coastal regions with heterogeneous soil texture

Abstract

Abstract Studying microbial diversity and the effects of external factors on the microbiome could expand our understanding of environmental alterations. Silt and sand are mineral particles that form soil texture and even though most of the soils on earth contain a fraction of them and some other soils form almost by them, their effects on the microbiome remained to elucidate. In this study, the bacterial biodiversity of sand and silt clay soils was investigated. Furthermore, their effects on plant growth have been determined. Our data showed that biodiversity and biomass of microbiome are higher in silt-based soil. It is interesting that the pseudomonas genera only exist in silt-based soil while it is in the absence of sand-based soil. In contrast, B. thuringiensis could be found in sand-based soil while it is not found in silt texture. Our data also demonstrated that there are no significant changes in stress response between the two groups however, differential physiological changes in plants inoculated with silt and sand based bacterial isolates have been observed. This data could indicate that smaller size particles could contain more bacteria with higher biodiversity due to providing more surfaces for bacteria to grow.