Short-term response of soil bacteria to carbon enrichment in different soil microsites

The response of bacteria in bulk soil and earthworm casts to carbon enrichment was studied by an RNA stable-isotope probing/terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism strategy with (13)C-labeled glucose and acetate. Both the soil microsite status and the carbon enrichment selected rapidly for different active bacterial communities, which resulted in different degradation kinetics. Our study clearly illustrates the biases that are generated by adding C substrates to detect metabolically active bacteria in soil.