Population census of myxobacteria in a soil niche. uncultured bacterium

Obtaining a census of the bacterial populations living in soil niches would provide substantial insight into their ecological lifestyles and evolution. However, because of the massive number, it is impracticable to identify all of the existing bacterial eco-types in a soil niche and determine their abundance, resulting in our incomplete knowledge. In this study, we investigated a community of Myxococcales in a soil niche (neutral to slightly alkaline garden soil) using improved high-throughput pyrosequencing of universal and myxobacteria-enriched libraries of the V3-V4 and V6-V8 hypervariable regions of the 16S rRNA gene. The soil were scooped from the upper 5–15 cm in November of 2010 at 36°67’N,117°06'E during a warm and semi-humid continental monsoon climate.