Natures wonders: importance of soil bacteria (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, October 18, 2023, 18:03 (400 days ago) @ David Turell

First life still around importantly:

https://ecoevocommunity.nature.com/posts/life-history-strategies-of-soil-bacterial-comm...

"In this study now published in Nature Microbiology, we decided to focus on bacteria that dominate the soil metagenomes. Our first goal was to define and calculate metagenomic metrics that we expected to capture the trait dimensions associated with the life history strategies of soil bacteria. We compiled this list of traits, based on previous syntheses7,10,11 and other studies relating these traits to specific genomic features.

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"As metabolic capacities expanded, we observed that bacterial communities became increasingly differentiated along a second dimension, which seems to reflect a trade-off between increasing capacities for environmental responsiveness or efficient nutrient recycling. Finally, we assessed how the position of bacterial communities along these trait dimensions was related to global environmental gradients. Our results showed that soil pH, C:N as well as precipitation level and seasonality were key drivers of bacterial life history strategy, consistent with the theory that resource acquisition constraints, as well as stress intensity and variability play a key role in shaping life history strategy. Bacteria with small genomes were favoured in neutral soils exposed to high water stress intensity and seasonality confirming recent evidence that genome and metabolic streamlining may be a central aspect of the stress-tolerant strategy of soil bacteria.

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"Overall, our studies have used metagenomes to describe the dominant trait dimensions associated with life history strategies of soil bacteria. This provides a new framework for studying and comparing soil bacterial communities, but does not close the case on soil bacterial life history strategies."

Comment: From the beginning of life until now bacteria have served an important role in the overall ecosystem of the bush of life. Soil bacteria play a very important role in the quality of soils and maintaining that quality. The theodicy discussion we are having revolves about this issue. Vastly good work by soil bacteria is necessary. But there are bad bugs in the group. Infections by Leptospira kill by attacking liver and/or kidneys. Not God's fault.