Small-scale biogeography of biofilms and its implications for sequencing-based studies

Area of Science:

• Microbiology
• Environmental Science
• Bioinformatics

Background:

• Biofilm microbial communities exhibit spatial heterogeneity due to environmental factors and microbial needs.
• Small-scale biogeography's impact on environmental biofilms and sequencing studies is not well understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• Investigate centimeter-scale biogeography in potable water biofilms.
• Assess the influence of sampling strategies on diversity metrics and inferred microbial interactions.

Main Methods:

• Studied potable water biofilms across varying environmental heterogeneity.
• Estimated microbial diversity at interaction-relevant scales.
• Analyzed the effects of sampling area on alpha/beta diversity, co-occurrences, and scaling laws.

Main Results:

• Biofilms in homogeneous environments show biogeographic patterns similar to heterogeneous ones, but with less variability.
• Local microbial neighborhoods have limited diversity, restricting cell interactions.
• Larger sampling areas distort community structure, overestimating co-occurrences and metabolic interactions.

Conclusions:

• Biofilm biogeography is a ubiquitous phenomenon, present even in seemingly uniform settings.
• Sampling strategies must account for spatial heterogeneity to accurately assess biofilm community structure and function.
• Adapting sampling methods is crucial for reliable biofilm research.