Dominant bacterial phyla in caves and their predicted functional roles in C and N cycle

• DOI: 10.1186/s12866-017-1002-x
• Publication Date: 2017-04-11T05:04:25Z
• Authors: Surajit De Mandal; Raghunath Chatterjee; Nachimuthu Senthi...
• Keywords: Acidobacteria; Verrucomicrobia; Biogeochemical Cycle; Nitrogen Cycle; Planctomycetes

Bacteria present in cave often survive by modifying their metabolic pathway or other mechanism. Understanding these adopted bacteria and survival strategy inside the is an important aspect of microbial ecology. Present study focuses on bacterial community geochemistry five caves Mizoram, Northeast India. The objective this was to explore taxonomic composition presumed functional diversity sediment metagenomes using paired end Illumina sequencing V3 region 16S rRNA gene bioinformatics pipeline. Actinobacteria, Proteobacteria, Verrucomicrobia Acidobacteria were major phyla all samples. Among highest found Lamsialpuk with a Shannon index 12.5 lowest Bukpuk (Shannon 8.22). In addition, imputed metagenomic approach used predict role biogeochemical cycling environments. Functional module showed high representation genes involved Amino Acid Metabolism (20.9%) Carbohydrate (20.4%) KEGG pathways. Genes responsible for carbon degradation, fixation, methane metabolism, nitrification, nitrate reduction ammonia assimilation also predicted study. sediments biodiversity hotspot possessing oligotrophic environment harbours phylogenetic dominated Actinobacteria Proteobacteria. geochemical factors, ferric oxide correlated increased diversity. In-silico analysis detected carbon, nitrogen, metabolism complex pathways nutrient limited Paired along revealed essential ecological communities. These results will be useful documenting biospeleology systematic understanding communities natural environments as well.