News

Agricultural Bacteria: Blowing in the Wind

 From Science Daily:  It was all too evident during the Dust Bowl what a disastrous impact wind can have on dry, unprotected topsoil. Now a new study has uncovered a less obvious, but still troubling, effect of wind: Not only can it carry away soil particles, but also the beneficial microbes that help build soil, detoxify contaminants, and recycle nutrients.
 
Using a powerful DNA sequencing technique, called pyrosequencing, a team led by USDA-ARS scientists Terrence Gardner and Veronica Acosta-Martínez analyzed the bacterial diversity in three Michigan agricultural soils, and in two eroded sediments generated from these soils during a wind tunnel experiment: coarse particles and fine dust. Not only were the microbial assemblages on the coarse particles distinct from those on the dust, report the scientists in the current issue of the Journal of Environmental Quality, but the two types of eroded sediments were each enriched in certain groups of microbes compared with the parent soil, as well.

 


back to overview