Bacterial colonization of reactive illite and goethite surfaces in grassland soils

Bacteria colonize reactive minerals in soils where they contribute to mineral weathering and transformation. So far, the patterns and dynamics of mineral colonization have rarely been assessed in natural environments. High throughput Illumina sequencing was employed to investigate the bacterial communities assembling on illite and goethite, exposed to natural grassland soils. We studied the impact of two different types of organic carbon sources (simple carbon compounds representing root exudates versus detritus of two dominant grassland plant species) on the temporal dynamics of bacterial communities.