Deserts rife with bacteria

It is usually thought the jungles are the breeding ground of bacteria, but a new study published today observes that deserts are richer in bacteria than the Amazon.

The conclusion is based of 98 soil samples from deserts across North and South America collected by biologists Noah Fierer and Robert Jackson.
 
Their research has been published online in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
 
The biologists studied the genetic diversity of bacteria across the two continents, which showed that rainforests and jungles support less kinds of microbes than deserts because the soil of tropical forests are more acidic as opposed to the neutral soil of the desert.
 
Fierer, from the University of Colorado, said: “Although soil bacteria have been studied for centuries, fundamental biological questions remain unanswered.
 
“Few people realize that 'dirt' supports a complex community of micro organisms that plays a critical role on Earth. The number of bacteria species in a spoonful of soil is likely to exceed the total number of plant species in all the United States,” he added.
 
The scientists measured the diversity of biological species by DNA ‘fingerprinting’, which indicated the diversity of a particular type of DNA called ribosomal DNA – a material known to vary extensively among bacterial species.
 
Measuring ribosomal DNA provided a genetic bar code to differentiate the species, allowing the biologists to see what environments accommodate the most diverse types of bacteria, although no complete number of species could be counted.

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