Metagenomic Sequencing of Hydroxybenzoic Acid Degrading Populations in Litter from Maple, Locust and Pine Forest. Stable Isotope Probing with Hydroxybenzoic Acid in Forest Soil

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.