Global biogeography of Streptomyces antibiotic inhibition, resistance, and resource use

Although recent molecular techniques have greatly expanded our knowledge of microbial biogeography, the functional biogeography of soil microorganisms remains poorly understood. In this work, we explore geographic variation in Streptomyces phenotypes that are critical to species interactions. Specifically, we characterize Streptomyces from different locations from multiple continents for antibiotic inhibition, resistance, and resource use phenotypes. Streptomyces from different locations varied significantly in antibiotic inhibition, resistance, and resource use indicating that communities vary in functional potential. Among all isolates, there were substantial differences in antibiotic inhibition, resistance, and resource use within and among and within Streptomyces species. Moreover, Streptomyces with near-identical 16S rRNA gene sequences from different locations sometimes differed significantly in inhibition, resistance, and resource use phenotypes, suggesting that these phenotypes may be locally adapted. Thus, in addition to a likely role of environmental filtering, variation in Streptomyces inhibitory, resistance, and resource use phenotypes among locations is likely to be a consequence of local selection mediated by species interactions.