The effects of climate and soil depth on living and relic bacterial communities along a longitudinal gradient in Chile

Soil bacterial communities play a critical role in shaping soil stability and formation and exhibit a dynamic interaction with local climate and soil depth. In order to accurately characterize microbial assemblages in low-biomass environments, such as deserts, we employed an innovative DNA separation method to distinguish between intact living cells (iDNA) and relic DNA (eDNA) in soils. This approach was applied in order to investigate soil bacterial communities across four sites that represent diverse climatic gradients (i.e., arid, semi-arid, Mediterranean, and humid) along the Chilean Coastal Cordillera.