Biomedical subjects

Daniel L Mummey

Publications and source records attributed to Daniel L Mummey.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Small-scale spatial heterogeneity of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal abundance and community composition in a wetland plant community.

Although it has become increasingly clear that arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) play important roles in population, community, and ecosystem ecology, there is limited information on the spatial structure of the community composition of AMF in the field. We assessed small-scale spatial variation in the abundance and molecular diversity of AMF in a calcareous fen, where strong underlying environmental gradients such as depth to water table may influence AMF. Throughout an intensively sampled 2 x 2 m plot, we assessed AMF inoculum potential at a depth of 0-6 and 6-12 cm and molecular diversity of the AMF community using terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism of 18S rDNA. Inoculum potential was only significantly spatially autocorrelated at a depth of 6-12 cm and was significantly positively correlated with depth to water table at both depths. Molecular diversity of the AMF community was highly variable within the plot, ranging from 2-14 terminal restriction fragments (T-RFs) per core, but the number of T-RFs did not relate to water table or plant species richness. Plant community composition was spatially autocorrelated at small scales, but AMF community composition showed no significant spatial autocorrelation. Saturated soils of calcareous fens contain many infective AMF propagules and the abundance and diversity of AMF inoculum is patchy over small spatial scales.

DNA, Fungal↗

PubMed2006

Mycorrhizas and soil structure.

In addition to their well-recognized roles in plant nutrition and communities, mycorrhizas can influence the key ecosystem process of soil aggregation. Here we review the contribution of mycorrhizas, mostly focused on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), to soil structure at various hierarchical levels: plant community; individual root; and the soil mycelium. There are a suite of mechanisms by which mycorrhizal fungi can influence soil aggregation at each of these various scales. By extension of these mechanisms to the question of fungal diversity, it is recognized that different species or communities of fungi can promote soil aggregation to different degrees. We argue that soil aggregation should be included in a more complete 'multifunctional' perspective of mycorrhizal ecology, and that in-depth understanding of mycorrhizas/soil process relationships will require analyses emphasizing feedbacks between soil structure and mycorrhizas, rather than a uni-directional approach simply addressing mycorrhizal effects on soils. We finish the discussion by highlighting new tools, developments and foci that will probably be crucial in further understanding mycorrhizal contributions to soil structure.

Ecosystem↗

PubMed2006

Phylogeny of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi predicts community composition of symbiosis-associated bacteria.

Many physicochemical and biotic aspects of the soil environment determine the community composition of bacteria. In this study, we examined the effects of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, common symbionts of higher plants, on the composition of bacterial communities after long-term (7-8 years) enrichment culture in the presence of a plant host. We showed that the phylogeny of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal isolates was a highly significant predictor of bacterial community composition, as assessed by cluster analysis, redundancy analysis and linear discriminant analysis of phospholipid fatty acid patterns. Numerous phospholipid fatty acids differed between the phylogenetic groupings; this pattern also held for fungal-origin phospholipid fatty acids and in a combined bacterial/fungal analysis, suggesting that categorizing phospholipid fatty acids into predominantly bacterial and fungal origin did not affect the overall outcome. The mechanisms underlying this observation could include substrate quality (and quantity) effects, interactions mediated by the host plant (e.g. rhizodeposition) and direct biotic interactions between arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and bacterial populations. Our results suggest that aspects of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal functions may be partially explained by the symbiosis-accompanying bacterial communities, a possibility that should be explicitly considered in studies examining the roles of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal species diversity in soil and ecosystem processes.

Bacteria↗

PubMed2004

Culture-independent analysis of midgut microbiota in the arbovirus vector Culicoides sonorensis (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae).

Differences in midgut microbial communities inhabiting Culicoides spp., insect vectors of virus pathogens, may affect the variation observed in the ability of these biting midges to propagate arthropod-borne viruses. As a first step toward addressing this hypothesis, midgut bacterial communities were compared between Culicoides species expected to be efficient and inefficient vectors of virus pathogens. We used 16S rDNA sequence and restriction fragment information to provisionally identify 36 bacterial genera from guts of wild adult female biting midges, Culicoides sonorensis Wirth and Jones and Culicoides variipennis (Coquillet), from two geographical locations. Bacterial identification was made by sequence analysis of 16S rDNA fragments and by terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis of polymerase chain reaction-amplified 16S rDNA fragments from adult guts. Of 36 bacterial genera identified, 12 had been previously identified in other insects: Comomonas, Enterobacter, Klebsiella, Acinetobacter, Pseudomonas, Stenotrophomonas, Staphylococcus, Chryseobacterium, Moraxella, Acholeplasma, Flavobacterium, and Rickettsia, Significant differences in bacterial community composition were found between all three groups of wild adult females analyzed: live-trapped C. sonorensis, laboratory-emerged C. sonorensis, and laboratory-emerged C. variipennis.

Animals↗

PubMed2003

Candidate division BD: phylogeny, distribution and abundance in soil ecosystems.

Oligonucleotide primers were designed and used to amplify partial 16S rDNA sequences of the recently identified bacterial group BD from four diverse soils. Phylogenetic analysis of 34 BD group sequences supports division-level status for the group and also indicates that the BD group consists of at least 3 subdivision-level groups. Sequence divergence (21%) amongst these BD group sequences was found to be near the average for bacterial division-level lineages. An intercalating dye-based quantitative PCR (qPCR) assay was used to quantify BD phylogenetic group 3 16S rDNA in Wyoming shortgrass steppe soils. Although BD phylogenetic group 3 16S rDNA sequence numbers were high, averaging 3 x 10(8) copies per g soil, no significant correlations were found between their abundance and soil organic matter content, inorganic N concentration, or pH. Based on microscopically estimated cell numbers and the range of rRNA operons per genome in the bacterial domain, we estimate that BD group 3 represents between 0.75% and 10.7% of the microbial population in a shortgrass steppe soil. Our results indicate that the BD group is widely distributed in the environment and present in significant numbers in Wyoming shortgrass steppe soils.

Bacteria↗