Characterization of soil bacterial, archaeal and fungal communities inhabiting archaeological human-impacted layers at Monte Iato settlement (Sicily, Italy)

Abstract

Microbial communities in human-impacted soils of ancient settlements have been proposed to be used as ecofacts (bioindicators) of different ancient anthropogenic activities. In this study, bacterial, archaeal and fungal communities inhabiting soil of three archaic layers, excavated at the archaeological site on Monte Iato (Sicily, Italy) and believed to have been created in a chronological order in archaic times in the context of periodic cultic feasts, were investigated in terms of (i) abundance (phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) analysis and quantitative PCR)), (ii) carbon(C)-source consumption patterns (Biolog-Ecoplates) and (iii) diversity and community composition (Illumina amplicon sequencing). PLFA analyses demonstrated the existence of living bacteria and fungi in the soil samples of all three layers. The upper layer showed increased levels of organic C, which were not concomitant with an increment in the microbial abundance. In taxonomic terms, the results indicated that bacterial, archaeal and fungal communities were highly diverse, although differences in richness or diversity among the three layers were not detected for any of the communities. However, significantly different microbial C-source utilization patterns and structures of bacterial, archaeal and fungal communities in the three layers confirmed that changing features of soil microbial communities reflect different past human activities.

Gut microbiota ofSpodoptera frugiperda(J.E. Smith) larvae as revealed by metatranscriptomic analysis

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Exploring the archaeome: detection of archaeal signatures in the human body

“…The reasons for the failure of the universal primers to detect Archaea are unclear; however, it seems bacterial signatures outcompete archaeal signatures, just due to slightly better primer matches, depending on the diversity within the sample. Furthermore, an archaeal primer pair (519F-806R) that has been used before for amplicon sequencing (Siles et al, 2018) detected only a small proportion of the archaeal diversity in the analyzed samples, but the same primer pair performed better when used in a nested PCR together with the primer pair 344F-1041R for the first PCR.…”

The microbiome of pest insects: it is not just bacteria

“…Archaea form another important domain of the microbes that not only inhabit extreme regions, but are also found in strong association with soils and oceans (Alves et al., ). Their rich diversity and huge abundances have been demonstrated with the help of metagenomics (Bates et al., ; Edwards et al., ; Siles et al., ), which also revealed that these organisms play important roles in the nitrogen cycling in soils – a function that was discovered not much more than a decade ago (Treusch et al., ). Archaea might directly affect their plant host (Taffner et al., ), which could indirectly affect pest insects.…”