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Namib Desert Soil Microbial Community Diversity, Assembly, and Function Along a Natural Xeric Gradient

  • Soil Microbiology
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Abstract

The hyperarid Namib desert is a coastal desert in southwestern Africa and one of the oldest and driest deserts on the planet. It is characterized by a west/east increasing precipitation gradient and by regular coastal fog events (extending up to 75 km inland) that can also provide soil moisture. In this study, we evaluated the role of this natural aridity and xeric gradient on edaphic microbial community structure and function in the Namib desert. A total of 80 individual soil samples were collected at 10-km intervals along a 190-km transect from the fog-dominated western coastal region to the eastern desert boundary. Seventeen physicochemical parameters were measured for each soil sample. Soil parameters reflected the three a priori defined climatic/xeric zones along the transect (“fog,” “low rain,” and “high rain”). Microbial community structures were characterized by terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism fingerprinting and shotgun metaviromics, and their functional capacities were determined by extracellular enzyme activity assays. Both microbial community structures and activities differed significantly between the three xeric zones. The deep sequencing of surface soil metavirome libraries also showed shifts in viral composition along the xeric transect. While bacterial community assembly was influenced by soil chemistry and stochasticity along the transect, variations in community “function” were apparently tuned by xeric stress.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the South African National Research Foundation (NRF; grant N00113-95565), the University of Pretoria and the Genomics Research Institute for the financial support. We also thank the staff of the Gobabeb Research and Training Centre (Namibia) for their support in the field; the Soil, Water and Plant Analysis Laboratory of the University of Pretoria for their help with the soil physicochemical analyses; and the Sequencing Facility of the University for the T-RFLP runs and the sequencing of the metaviromes.

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Author notes

  1. Aline Frossard

    Present address: Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL), Zürcherstrasse 111, 8903, Birmensdorf, Switzerland

  2. Olivier Zablocki

    Present address: Institute for Microbial Biotechnology and Metagenomics, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa

  3. Evelien M. Adriaenssens

    Present address: Institute of Integrative Biology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Microbial Ecology and Genomics (CMEG), Department of Microbiology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa

    Vincent Scola & Olivier Zablocki

  2. Centre for Microbial Ecology and Genomics (CMEG), Department of Genetics, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa

    Jean-Baptiste Ramond, Aline Frossard, Evelien M. Adriaenssens, Riegardt M. Johnson & Don A. Cowan

  3. Gobabeb Research and Training Centre, Walvis Bay, Namibia

    Mary Seely

  4. Desert Research Foundation of Namibia (DRFN), Windhoek, Namibia

    Mary Seely

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  1. Vincent Scola
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Scola, V., Ramond, JB., Frossard, A. et al. Namib Desert Soil Microbial Community Diversity, Assembly, and Function Along a Natural Xeric Gradient. Microb Ecol 75, 193–203 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-017-1009-8

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