Metatranscriptomic and 16S rRNA gene analysis of a cyanobacterial soil-surface consortium with and without a diverse underlying soil microbiome

Cyanobacteria-based soil surface consortia are of interest as soil inoculants because of their potential to fix carbon and nitrogen and improve soil structure. Like other soil inoculants, their establishment and function is likely affected by microorganisms that are already established in the soil. Here, we introduced a Cyanobacteria-based soil surface consortium (DG1) to soils that had received one of four treatments: 1) low diversity microbiome; 2) low diversity microbiome + urea; 3) high diversity microbiome; and 4) high diversity microbiome + urea. Since Cyanobacteria can act as a primary source of nitrogen addition to soil systems, we expected that urea addition would alter interactions between DG1 and underlying microorganisms. Soil samples from each microcosm were collected, DNA extracted, and the v4 region (515F/806R) of the 16s rRNA gene was amplified and sequenced using an Illumina MiSeq (v2 2x250 bp chemistry).