Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 28, 2026

Isolation and Analysis of Microbial Communities in Soil, Rhizosphere, and Roots in Perennial Grass Experiments
Published on: July 24, 2018
Diversity rankings among bacterial lineages in soil
Noha H Youssef1, Mostafa S Elshahed
1Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Oklahoma State University, 1110 S. Innovation Way, Stillwater, OK 74074, USA.
Abstract:
We used rarefaction curve analysis and diversity ordering-based approaches to rank the 11 most frequently encountered bacterial lineages in soil according to diversity in 5 previously reported 16S rRNA gene clone libraries derived from agricultural, undisturbed tall grass prairie and forest soils (n=26,140, 28 328, 31 818, 13 001 and 53 533). The Planctomycetes, Firmicutes and the delta-Proteobacteria were consistently ranked among the most diverse lineages in all data sets, whereas the Verrucomicrobia, Gemmatimonadetes and beta-Proteobacteria were consistently ranked among the least diverse. On the other hand, the rankings of alpha-Proteobacteria, Acidobacteria, Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes and Chloroflexi varied widely in different soil clone libraries. In general, lineages exhibiting largest differences in diversity rankings also exhibited the largest difference in relative abundance in the data sets examined. Within these lineages, a positive correlation between relative abundance and diversity was observed within the Acidobacteria, Actinobacteria and Chloroflexi, and a negative diversity-abundance correlation was observed within the Bacteroidetes. The ecological and evolutionary implications of these results are discussed.
Related Concept Videos
Diversity of Archaea I
Diversity of Archaea IV
Diversity of Archaea III
Diversity of Archaea II
Soil Microbial Ecology
Bacterial Phylum Proteobacteria

