For example, leaves are frequently full of fungi that have done much of their growth while the leaf is still "green", or at senescing. They bind up phosphorus and nitrogen, and put much of that into spores. However in some sites, leaves have much lower loads of such latent pathogens, and thus their nutrients are absorbed by fungi that are accustomed to life in the soil. Thus the nutrient holding quality of the "soil microbes" may be dependent upon their origin.
Perhaps we could simply compare microbial biomass of scenescent leaves from site to site to find out the relative contribution of the two groups of microbes.??
This is not even getting into the diversity of soil arthropods and mollusks prefer to eat leaves interlaced with fungi ("tempe" for them)
Article Denitrification in north temperate forest soils: Relationshi...
For the living biomass, you could run an FDA (fluorescein diacetate hydrolysis). It won't inform you of what species are in your sample, but it will give you the total amount. FDAs are quick and inexpensive. Refer to Schnurer and Rosswall (1982) or Adam and Duncan (2001).
There is an available kit that stains dead and alive bacteria differently. You will need an epifluorescent microscope to count or see these bacteria.
We used TTC in agar plates for example to follow growing roots (sterile) ! It can be also used for live bacteria but it is not specific !
The two types of fungi: the leave and soil fungi will have to be identified and classified if they have not. Then their cellulases isolated and classified or differentiated. Only then can amounts or cellulase activity be used to differentiate levels of fungi populations in different sites and in green or discoloured or dead leaves.
This is a complex physiology. Answer to this phenomenon is not straight forward. You need to follow the population and community study of the Microbes in a season with prevailing variables and compare it with subsequent season with changing variable. Simultaneously consideration of the richness & limitations of available nutritional resources by identifying the major source of Carbon, Nitrogen and Phosphorus along with available CN ratio is out most important.
Individual microbial population (cfu) will be its indicators. You can easily distinguish by comparison of microbial population & community (all culturable / cultivable) of two seasons; which one is flourishing and which one is diminishing.
Apart from it the status of litter is equally important and irrespective of season. Microbial community of acidogenesis and acetogenesis will remain unchanged with slight variation in their population.
The variation in environmental factors and nutrient between seasons of the year which essential for growth of fungi and bacteria play very important role in the growth and population of fungal and bacterial spores .
To reach the accurate causes of these phenomena the following methods must be adapted:
1) Seasonally , COLLECT A SAMPLES OF INFECTED AND INTACT SOIL, ROOTS, STEMS AND LEAVES OF PLANT UNDER A SEPTIC CONDITION AND TRANSFERRED TO LABORATORY
2) Chemical ANALYSIS OF ALL SAMPLES FOR MEASUREMENT OF NUTRIENT CONTENT AS TOTAL PROTEIN, CELLULOSE, TOTAL FIBERS, CARBON ............ETC
3) THE SAM COLLECTED SAMPLES ARE SUBJECTED FOR COLONY COUNT OF FUNGI and bacteria (TO DETERMINE THE POPULATION OF FUNGIAND IN EACH SAMPLES)
4) ALL OVER THE SEASONS THE ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS MUST BE MEASURED AS TEMPERATURE, HUMIDITY , WATER ACTIVITY , INSECT IF PRESENT
NOW , YOU HAVE FULL DATA ABOUT THE PHENOMENA ( FUNGAL AND BACTERIAL POPULATION IN SOIL ,LEAVES , STEMS, ROOTS AND ITS BIOCHEMICAL CONTENT WITH ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS ) .THE ANALYSIS OF THE DATA WILL ILLUSTRATE BRIEFLY THIS PHENOMENON
DUE TO THE ENVIRONMENT OF THE SOILS IN THE FOREST AS TEMPERATURE AND HUMIDITY WITH THE FIBERS AS CELLULOSE WHICH ESSENTIAL FOR GROWTH OF MOST FUNGI \ THEREFOR THE GROWTH AND POPULATION IN SOIL IS MOST SUITABLE FOR FUNGI HIGHER THAN IN THE LEAVES .
MUCH OBLIGATED
,
Most environmental bacteria aren't culturable; there is an approach that uses rRNA:DNA ratios to determine what is alive and what is dead. But this takes considerable investment in a genetic approach which may not be feasible if you're not already using genetics to characterize your community.
The basic principle is that ribosomal RNA degrades fairly quickly and must be transcribed regularly, and therefore is found exclusively in living organisms. Matching rRNA abundance to the ribosomal coding DNA abundance tells you whether the organisms you're sampling are active or not. Many organisms form resting structures where they have low levels of ribosomes expressed. Some people use QPCR to determine these ratios but this method (is cheaper...) can't distinguish individuals from the population in general; for that you'd need to sequence and do some interesting bioinformatics. There are some drawbacks, but a major advantage is that you are not limited to studying cultured organisms, but instead have access to the entire community.
What Dietrich said is true, with regards to microbial genetic diversity. I might even throw in t-RFLP protocols, to really dig into it. There is a lot of functional overlap within the microbial kingdom too, so maybe methods like PLFA analysis (e.g., 16:1 ω5c for AMF) could be used to help quantify the microbial load as well. It would conceivably cost a small fortune to do all that testing, but with a good statistician you could conceivably drive down sample size required to draw a valid conclusion.
For the living biomass, you could run an FDA (fluorescein diacetate hydrolysis). It won't inform you of what species are in your sample, but it will give you the total amount. FDAs are quick and inexpensive. Refer to Schnurer and Rosswall (1982) or Adam and Duncan (2001).
Hi Liam
Some useful references on attachment 1
https://quizlet.com/28158823/micro-ch6-flash-cards/
3
https://www.lamission.edu/lifesciences/lecturenote/mic20/Chap06Growth.pdf
4
https://www4.ncsu.edu/~lagillen/SSC%20532/Chapter%2010/Chapter%2010.html
9
https://www.boundless.com/biology/textbooks/boundless-biology-textbook/population-and-community-ecology-45/environmental-limits-to-population-growth-251/exponential-population-growth-929-12185/
12
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/horizon/june98/microbes.htm
n
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2009/05/your-body-wonderland-bacteria
w
http://www.ocr.org.uk/Images/67489-unit-f212-molecules-biodiversity-food-and-health-high-band.pdf
n
https://www.growingagreenerworld.com/bacteria-fungus-and-viruses-an-overview/
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