Life in leaf litter: novel insights into bacterial community dynamics during leaf litter decomposition. Bacterial community dynamics during leaf litter decomposition

Here we investigated bacterial community succession in leaf litter of temperate beech forest over 473 days using pyrotag sequencing of the bacterial 16S. Our results revealed that bacterial communities underwent rapid changes during litter decomposition. Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria and Bacteroidetes dominated decomposing leaf litter over the entire study period; however, their taxonomic composition and abundances strongly changed between the sampling dates.