Soil Bacterial Fauna

• Microbes in the soil are directly tied to nutrient recycling especially

carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur. Bacteria are a major class of
microorganisms that keep soils healthy and productive.
BACTERIA CHARACTERISTICS
• Bacteria are tiny one-celled organisms generally 4/100,000 of an inch wide
(1 µm).
• A teaspoon of productive soil generally contains between 100 million and 1
billion bacteria.
• While bacteria may be small, they make up both the largest number and
biomass (weight) of any soil microorganism.
• They grow and live in thin water films around soil particles and near roots
in an area called the rhizosphere.
• Bacteria’s small size enables them to grow and adapt more rapidly to
changing environmental conditions than larger, more complex
microorganisms like fungi.
• bacteria live under starvation conditions or soil water stress, they
reproduce quickly when optimal water, food, and environmental
conditions occur.
BACTERIA CLASSIFICATION
• BACTERIA SHAPE
• rod, sphere or spiral
• Actinomycetes are still classified as bacteria but are similar to fungi except
they are smaller in size.
• AEROBIC AND ANAEROBIC BACTERIA
• Most soil bacteria prefer well-oxygenated soils and are called aerobic bacteria
and use the oxygen to decompose most carbon compounds.
• Examples of aerobic bacteria include the Aerobacter genus which is widely
distributed in the soil
• actinomycetes bacteria genus Streptomyces which give soil its good “earthy”
smell
 • Anaerobic bacteria are generally found in compacted soil, deep inside soil particles
(microsites), and hydric soils where oxygen is limiting.
• Many pathogenic bacteria prefer anaerobic soil conditions and are known to
outcompete or kill off aerobic bacteria in the soil.
• Also found in the intestines of animals and are associated with manure and bad
smells
• GRAM NEGATIVE AND GRAM POSITIVE BACTERIA
• OTHER BACTERIA CLASSIFICATIONS
• by their growth and reproduction.
• Autotrophic bacteria (also called autotrophs) process carbon dioxide to get their
carbon. Some autotrophic bacteria directly use sunlight and carbon dioxide to
produce sugars, while others depend on other chemical reactions to obtain energy.
• Algae and cyanobacteria are some examples of autotrophic bacteria. Heterotrophic
bacteria obtain their carbohydrates and/or sugars from their environment or the
living organism or cell they inhabit.
• Examples include Arthrobacter bacteria involved in nitrogen nitrification
• With new advances in DNA sequencing, most scientists are classifying
bacteria based on the type of environment in which they inhabit.
• Bacteria can live in extreme environments like hot springs for sulfur
bacteria or in extreme cold as in ice water in the Arctic.
• Bacteria may also be classified by living in a highly acidic versus
alkaline environment, aerobic versus anaerobic, or autotrophic versus
heterotrophic environment
BACTERIA FUNCTIONAL GROUPS
• Bacteria perform many important ecosystem services in the soil including
improved soil structure and soil aggregation, recycling of soil nutrients, and water
recycling. Soil bacteria form microaggregates in the soil by binding soil particles
together with their secretions.
• Ingham (2009) describes the four major soil bacteria functional groups as
decomposers, mutualists, pathogens and lithotrophs. Each functional bacteria
group plays a role in recycling soil nutrients.
• The decomposers consume the easy-to-digest carbon compounds and
simple sugars and tie up soluble nutrients like nitrogen in their cell
membranes.
• Bacteria dominate in tilled soils but they are only 20-30 percent
efficient at recycling carbon (C).
• Bacteria are higher in nitrogen (N) content (10-30 percent nitrogen, 3
to 10 C:N ratio) than most microbes (Islam, 2008)
• Of the mutualistic bacteria, there are four bacteria types that convert
atmospheric nitrogen (N2) into nitrogen for plants.
• There are three types of soil bacteria that fix nitrogen without a plant host
and live freely in the soil and these include Azotobacter,
Azospirillum and Clostridium.
• Nitrogen fixation occurs because these specific bacteria produce the
nitrogenase enzyme.
• Nitrogen fixing bacteria are generally widely available in most soil types
(both free living soil species and bacteria species dependent on a plant host).
• Free living species generally only comprise a very small percentage of the
total microbial population and are often bacteria strains with low nitrogen
fixing ability (Dick, W., 2009).
• The Rhizobium bacteria (gram negative rod-shaped bacteria) species
associate with a plant host: legume (alfalfa, soybeans) or clover (red, sweet,
white, crimson) to form nitrogen nodules to fix nitrogen for plant growth.
• The plant supplies the carbon to the Rhizobium in the form of simple
sugars. Rhizobium bacteria take nitrogen from the atmosphere and convert
it to a form the plant can use.
• For plant use, the atmospheric nitrogen (N2) or reactive nitrogen combines
with oxygen to form nitrate (NO3-) or nitrite (NO2-) or combines with
hydrogen to produce ammonia (NH3+) or ammonium (NH4+) which are used
by plant cells to make amino acids and proteins (Lowenfels & Lewis, 2006).
• Bacteria and fungi are typically consumed by protozoa and nematodes and the
microbial wastes they excrete is ammonia (NH4+) which is plant available nitrogen.
• Nitrite bacteria (Nitrosomonas spp.) convert the ammonia into nitrites (NO2-) and
nitrate bacteria (Nitrobacter spp.) may then convert the nitrites (NO2-) to nitrates
(NO3-).
• Nitrifying bacteria prefer alkaline soil conditions or a pH above 7 (Lowenfels &
Lewis, 2006).
• Denitrifying bacteria allow nitrate (NO3-) to be converted to nitrous oxide
(N2O) or dinitrogen (N2) (atmospheric nitrogen).
• For denitrification to occur, a lack of oxygen or anaerobic conditions must
occur to allow the bacteria to cleave off the oxygen.
• These conditions are common in ponded or saturated fields, compacted
fields, or deep inside the microaggregates of soil where oxygen is limited.
• Denitrifying bacteria decrease the nitrogen fertility of soils by allowing
the nitrogen to escape back into the atmosphere.
• On a saturated clay soil, as much as 40 to 60 percent of the soil nitrogen
may be lost by denitrification to the atmosphere (Dick, W., 2009).
• Pathogenic bacteria cause diseases in plants and a good example are
bacteria blights.
• Healthy and diverse soil bacteria populations produce antibiotics that
protect the plants from disease causing organisms and plant pathogens.
• Diverse bacteria populations compete for the same soil nutrients and
water and tend to act as a check and balance system by reducing the
disease-causing organism populations.
• With high microbial diversity, soils have more nonpathogenic bacteria
competing with the pathogenic bacteria for nutrients and habitat
(Lowenfels & Lewis, 2006).
• Streptomycetes (actinomycetes) produce more than 50 different
antibiotics to protect plants from pathogenic bacteria (Sylvia et al., 2005)
• Lithotrophs (chemoautotrophs) get their energy from compounds
other than carbon (like nitrogen or sulfur) and include species
important in nitrogen and sulfur recycling.
• Under well-aerated conditions, sulfur-oxidizing bacteria make the
sulfur more plant available while under saturated (anaerobic, low
oxygen) soil conditions, sulfur reducing bacteria make sulfur less plant
available.
• Actinomycetes have large filaments or hyphae and act similar to
fungus in processing soil organic residues which are hard to
decompose (chitin, lignin, etc.).
• When farmers plow or till the soil, actinomycetes release “geosmin”
as they die which gives freshly turned soil its characteristic smell.
Actinomycetes decompose many substances but are more active at
high soil pH levels (Ingham, 2009).
• Actinomycetes are important in forming stable humus, which
enhances soil structure, improves nutrient storage, and increases
water retention
SOIL BENEFITS FROM BACTERIA

• Bacteria grow in many different microenvironments and specific

niches in the soil.
• Bacteria populations expand rapidly and the bacteria are more competitive when easily
digestible simple sugars are readily available around in the rhizosphere.
• Root exudates, dead plant debris, simple sugars, and complex polysaccharides are
abundant is this region.
• About 10 to 30 percent of the soil microorganisms in the rhizosphere are actinomycetes,
depending on environmental conditions
• Many bacteria produce a layer of polysaccharides or glycoproteins
that coats the surface of soil particles.
• These substances play an important role in cementing sand, silt and clay soil
particles into stable microaggregates that improve soil structure.
• Bacteria live around the edges of soil mineral particles, especially clay and
associated organic residues.
• Bacteria are important in producing polysaccharides that cement sand, silt
and clay particles together to form microaggregates and improve soil
structure (Hoorman, 2011).
• Bacteria do not move very far in the soil, so most movement is associated
with water, growing roots or hitching a ride with other soil fauna like
earthworms, ants, spiders,
• In general, most soil bacteria do better in neutral pH soils that are well
oxygenated.
• Bacteria provide large quantities of nitrogen to plants and nitrogen is often lacking in
the soil.
• Many bacteria secrete enzymes in the soil to makes phosphorus more soluble and
plant available.
• In general, bacteria tend to dominate fungi in tilled or disrupted soils because the
fungi prefer more acidic environments without soil disturbance.
• Bacteria also dominate in flooded fields because most fungi do not survive without
oxygen. Bacteria can survive in dry or flooded conditions due to their small size, high
numbers, and their ability to live in small microsites within the soil where
environmental conditions may be favorable.
• Once the environmental conditions around these microsites become more favorable,
the survivors quickly expand their populations (Dick, W., 2009). Protozoa tend to be
the biggest predators of bacteria in tilled soils
• Natural succession happens in a number of plant environments
including in the soil.
• Bacteria improve the soil so that new plants can become established. Without
bacteria, new plant populations and communities struggle to survive or even
exist.
• Bacteria change the soil environment so that certain plant species can exist
and proliferate.
• Where new soil is forming, certain photosynthetic bacteria start to colonize
the soil, recycling nitrogen, carbon, phosphorus, and other soil nutrients to
produce the first organic matter.
• A soil that is dominated by bacteria usually is tilled or disrupted and has
higher soil pH and nitrogen available as nitrate, which is the perfect
environment for low successional plants called weeds