Microbial community types and signature-like soil bacterial patterns from fortified prehistoric hills of Thuringia (Germany)

Abstract

16S rRNA profiling has been applied for the investigation of bacterial communities of surface soil samples from forestcovered areas of ten prehistorical ramparts from different parts of Thuringia. Besides the majority bacterial types that are present in all samples, there could be identified bacteria that are highly abundant in some places and absent or low abundant in others. These differences are mainly related to the acidity of substrate and distinguish the communities of lime stone hills from soils of sand/quartzite and basalt hills. Minority components of bacterial communities show partially large differences that cannot be explained by the pH of the soil or incidental effects, only. They reflect certain relations between the communities of different places and could be regarded as a kind of signature-like patterns. Such relations had also been found in a comparison of the data from ramparts with formerly studied 16S rRNA profiling from an iron-age burial field. The observations are supporting the idea that a part of the components of bacterial communities from soil samples reflect their ecological history and can be understood as the "ecological memory" of a place. Probably such memory effects can date back to prehistoric times and might assist in future interpretations of archaeological findings on the prehistoric use of a place, on the one hand. On the other hand, the genetic profiling of soils of prehistoric places contributes to the evaluation of anthropogenic effects on the development of local soil bacterial diversity.

Keragaman dan Resistensi Antibiotik Isolat Bakteri Tanah di Dalam dan Luar TPU Bonoloyo, Surakarta Jawa Tengah

“…Beberapa faktor yang dapat mempengaruhi; pertumbuhan mikroorganisme tanah yaitu bahan organik, kelembaban tanah, temperatur tanah, aerasi tanah dan keadaan alami pertumbuhan tanaman (Sahara, 2019). Perubahan kondisi cuaca dan iklim serta ketersediaan air dan nutrisi yang bervariasi, zat perusak mempengaruhi perkembangan berbagai mikroba di komunitas tanah (Köhler et al, 2020).…”

Extremophiles in Soil Communities of Former Copper Mining Sites of the East Harz Region (Germany) Reflected by Re-Analyzed 16S rRNA Data

“…The sample material (No. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] is not any kind of typical natural soil, but surface material from the mine dumps, was brought from the ground to the surface during the site-related mining phases. The soil material was taken during dry weather periods.…”

“…19 has a special position between the soil samples of the ancient mining areas (No. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] and the comparative samples (20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25). In contrast to the ancient shaft hole places and small mine dumps, the base area of the industrial mine dump has no vegetation and nearly no humus formation.…”

“…Traces of early human activities, which changed the structure and character of soils, can be stored over a long time and are reflected in the local compositions of the soil bacterial communities. This "ecological memory of soil" was observed, for example, on prehistorical settlements, working and burial places [10][11][12][13]. The understanding of "man-made environments", mining-related acidic soils among them, for example, remains an urgent challenge for investigations of soil microbial communities up to now [14].…”

Three Soil Bacterial Communities from an Archaeological Excavation Site of an Ancient Coal Mine near Bennstedt (Germany) Characterized by 16S r-RNA Sequencing

“…Archaeology is increasingly becoming a focus of genetic investigations [22][23][24]. Thus, special soil bacterial communities have been reported in archaeological excavation sites-prehistoric buildings, settlement places, and tombs [25][26][27][28][29][30]-and medieval or early modern pre-industrial mining and smelting sites [31][32][33][34]. Despite the investigations of soil bacterial communities on modern and historical metal mines and smelting sites, less attention has been paid to historic coal mines.…”