Metagenomic Sequencing of Hydroxybenzoic Acid Degrading Populations in Litter from Maple, Locust and Pine Forest

The capacity of forest soil decomposers to degrade lignin and mineralize lignin-byproducts can influence the overall rate of decomposition in forest litter. Here, we compared the microbial populations from three forest litters that actively assimilated carbon from 13C-labeled hydroxybenzoic acid, a lignin-degradation byproduct. We identified Burkholderia, Pseudomonas and Novosphingobium as the major degraders of hydroxybenzoic acid. The putative activity of Burkholderia was confirmed by testing the functional capacity of isolates. A Burkholderia isolate genome was characterized, leading to the description of a novel pobA gene that appears of general importance to all litter samples.