Environmental factors relating to soil pH are widely known to be important in structuring soil bacterial communities, yet the relationship between taxonomic community composition and functional diversity remains to be determined. Here, we analyze geographically distributed soils spanning a wide pH gradient and assess the functional gene capacity within those communities using whole genome metagenomics. Low pH soils consistently had fewer taxa (lower alpha and gamma diversity), but only marginal reductions in functional alpha diversity and equivalent functional gamma diversity. However, coherent changes in the relative abundances of annotated genes between pH classes were identified; with functional profiles clustering according to pH independent of geography. Differences in gene abundances were found to reflect survival and nutrient acquisition strategies, with organic-rich acidic soils harboring a greater abundance of cation efflux pumps, C and N direct fixation systems and fermentation pathways indicative of anaerobiosis. Conversely, high pH soils possessed more direct transporter-mediated mechanisms for organic C and N substrate acquisition. These findings show that bacterial functional versatility may not be constrained by taxonomy, and we further identify the range of physiological adaptations required to exist in soils of varying nutrient availability and edaphic conditions.Environmental factors relating to soil pH are widely known to be important in structuring soil bacterial communities, yet the relationship between taxonomic community composition and functional diversity remains to be determined. Here, we analyze geographically distributed soils spanning a wide pH gradient and assess the functional gene capacity within those communities using whole genome metagenomics. Low pH soils consistently had fewer taxa (lower alpha and gamma diversity), but only marginal reductions in functional alpha diversity and equivalent functional gamma diversity. However, coherent changes in the relative abundances of annotated genes between pH classes were identified; with functional profiles clustering according to pH independent of geography. Differences in gene abundances were found to reflect survival and nutrient acquisition strategies, with organic-rich acidic soils harboring a greater abundance of cation efflux pumps, C and N direct fixation systems and fermentation pathways indicative of anaerobiosis. Conversely, high pH soils possessed more direct transporter-mediated mechanisms for organic C and N substrate acquisition. These findings show that bacterial functional versatility may not be constrained by taxonomy, and we further identify the range of physiological adaptations required to exist in soils of varying nutrient availability and edaphic conditions.
", "keywords": ["Q Science", "0301 basic medicine", "330", "Supplementary Data", "ecophysiology", "Ecophysiology", "NE/E006353/1", "Bacterial Physiological Phenomena", "Microbiology", "Soil", "03 medical and health sciences", "Virology", "European Commission", "Ecosystem", "Phylogeny", "Soil Microbiology", "2. Zero hunger", "655240", "metagenomics", "0303 health sciences", "Bacteria", "Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)", "Q", "NE/M017125/1", "Biodiversity", "Hydrogen-Ion Concentration", "15. Life on land", "Adaptation", " Physiological", "soil microbiology", "QR1-502", "United Kingdom", "3. Good health", "Soil microbiology", "Metagenomics", "Genome", " Bacterial", "Research Article"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/117887v1.full.pdf"}, {"href": "https://journals.asm.org/doi/pdf/10.1128/mBio.00799-17"}, {"href": "https://doi.org/10.1128/mBio.00799-17"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/mBio", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1128/mBio.00799-17", "name": "item", "description": "10.1128/mBio.00799-17", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1128/mBio.00799-17"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2017-03-18T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.3390/v11070611", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"license": "Open Access", "updated": "2026-07-27T16:22:04Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2019-06-12", "title": "Expanding the Diversity of Myoviridae Phages Infecting Lactobacillus plantarum\u2014A Novel Lineage of Lactobacillus Phages Comprising Five New Members", "description": "Lactobacillus plantarum is a bacterium with promising applications to the food industry and agriculture and probiotic properties. So far, bacteriophages of this bacterium have been moderately addressed. We examined the diversity of five new L. plantarum phages via whole genome shotgun sequencing and in silico protein predictions. Moreover, we looked into their phylogeny and their potential genomic similarities to other complete phage genome records through extensive nucleotide and protein comparisons. These analyses revealed a high degree of similarity among the five phages, which extended to the vast majority of predicted virion-associated proteins. Based on these, we selected one of the phages as a representative and performed transmission electron microscopy and structural protein sequencing tests. Overall, the results suggested that the five phages belong to the family Myoviridae, they have a long genome of 137.973-141.344 bp, a G/C content of 36,3-36,6% that is quite distinct from their host’s, and, surprisingly, seven to 15 tRNAs. Only an average 41/174 of their predicted genes were assigned a function. The comparative analyses unraveled considerable genetic diversity for the five L. plantarum phages of this study. Hence, the new genus “Semelevirus” was proposed, which comprises exclusively the five phages. This novel lineage of Lactobacillus phages provides further insight into the genetic heterogeneity of phages infecting Lactobacillus sp.. The five new Lactobacillus phages have a potential value for the development of more robust starters through, for example, the selection of mutants insensitive to phage infections. The five phages could also form part of phage cocktails, which producers would apply in different stages of L. plantarum fermentations in order to create a range of organoleptic outputs.
", "keywords": ["0301 basic medicine", "Annotation", "comparative genomics", "Genome", " Viral", "Lactobacillus plantarum", "Microbiology", "Article", "Isolation", "diversity", "03 medical and health sciences", "Microscopy", " Electron", " Transmission", "DNA Packaging", "phage", "Bacteriophages", "Phylogeny", "Viral Structural Proteins", "2. Zero hunger", "Diversity", "Base Composition", "0303 health sciences", "Comparative genomics", "new genus", "Genomics", "Sequence Analysis", " DNA", "QR1-502", "virology", "Phylogenetics", "phylogenetics", "Lactobacillus", "annotation", "Myoviridae", "Phage", "New genus", "isolation", "Lactobacillus plantarum"]}, "links": [{"href": "http://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/11/7/611/pdf"}, {"href": "https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/11/7/611/pdf"}, {"href": "https://doi.org/10.3390/v11070611"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Viruses", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.3390/v11070611", "name": "item", "description": "10.3390/v11070611", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.3390/v11070611"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2019-06-11T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "2164/15058", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"license": "Open Access", "updated": "2026-07-27T16:26:58Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2017-03-19", "title": "Bacterial physiological adaptations to contrasting edaphic conditions identified using landscape scale metagenomics", "description": "AbstractEnvironmental factors relating to soil pH are widely known to be important in structuring soil bacterial communities, yet the relationship between taxonomic community composition and functional diversity remains to be determined. Here, we analyze geographically distributed soils spanning a wide pH gradient and assess the functional gene capacity within those communities using whole genome metagenomics. Low pH soils consistently had fewer taxa (lower alpha and gamma diversity), but only marginal reductions in functional alpha diversity and equivalent functional gamma diversity. However, coherent changes in the relative abundances of annotated genes between pH classes were identified; with functional profiles clustering according to pH independent of geography. Differences in gene abundances were found to reflect survival and nutrient acquisition strategies, with organic-rich acidic soils harboring a greater abundance of cation efflux pumps, C and N direct fixation systems and fermentation pathways indicative of anaerobiosis. Conversely, high pH soils possessed more direct transporter-mediated mechanisms for organic C and N substrate acquisition. These findings show that bacterial functional versatility may not be constrained by taxonomy, and we further identify the range of physiological adaptations required to exist in soils of varying nutrient availability and edaphic conditions.