A particular successful clade in temperate soils – the Acidobacteriota

The Acidobacteriota are characterized by large phylogenetic diversity and great abundance in soils worldwide. Being particularly successful in these often carbon-limited soils, we focus on this group with the goal to elucidate the physiological features that enable them to survive or even thrive in the often-challenging soil habitats. In a comparative genomic investigation, we identified different physiological capacities that could provide them with an advantage in soil. These features were investigated in detail in a multidisciplinary approach, revealing the unexpected use of low-affinity terminal oxidases to respire nano-molar concentrations of oxygen and the oxidation of H2 during starvation. Our studies uncovered great physiological flexibility of this abundant group of soil bacteria, which, together with H2 scavenging as a survival strategy, might explain the success and thus ubiquity of these bacteria. We have received funding for this project by the FWF, Austrian Science Fund (project No. P 26392-B20).


Selected publications:

Huber KJ, Pester M, Eichorst SA, Navarrete AA, Foesel BU. 2022. Editorial: Acidobacteria - Towards Unraveling the Secrets of a Widespread, Though Enigmatic, Phylum. Front Microbiol. 13:960602. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2022.960602.

Trojan D, Garcia-Robledo E, Meier MV, Hausmann B, Revsbech NP, Eichorst SA, Woebken D. 2021. Microaerobic lifestyle at nanomolar O2 concentrations mediated by low-affinity terminal oxidases in abundant soil bacteria. mSystems. 6(4): e00250-21. {doi:10.1128/mSystems.00250-21}

Giguere AT*, Eichorst SA*, Meier D, Herbold CW, Richter A, Greening C, Woebken D. 2020. Acidobacteria are active and abundant members of diverse atmospheric H2-oxidizing communities detected in temperate soils. ISME J.  {doi:10.1038/s41396-020-00750-8} *denotes co-first authors. Behind the paper.

Eichorst SA, Trojan D, Huntemann M, Clum A, Pillay M, Palaniappan K, Varghese N, Mikhailova N, Stamatis D, Reddy TBK, Daum C, Goodwin LA, Shapiro N, Ivanova N, Kyrpides N, Woyke T, Woebken D. 2020. One complete and seven draft genomes sequences of subdivision 1 and 3 Acidobacteria isolated from soil. Microbiol Resour Announc 9(5): e01087-19. {doi:10.1128/MRA.010878-19}

Eichorst SA*, Trojan D*, Roux S, Herbold C, Rattei T, and Woebken D. 2018. Genomic insights into the Acidobacteria reveal strategies for their success in terrestrial environments. Environ Microbiol 20(3): 1041-1063. {doi:10.1111/1462-2920.14043}. *denotes co-first authors.

Hausmann B, Pelikan C, Herbold CW, Köstlbacher S, Albertsen M, Eichorst SA, Glavina Del Rio T, Huemer M, Nielsen PH, Rattei T, Stingl U, Tringe SG, Trojan D, Wentrup C, Woebken D, Pester M, Loy A. 2018. Peatland Acidobacteria with a dissimilatory sulfur metabolism. ISME J 12:1729-1742. {doi:10.1038/s41396-018-0077-1}

Eichorst SA, Trojan D, and Woebken D. (2017) Terriglobus. In Bergey's Manual of Systematics and Archaea and Bacteria. (eds W.B. Whitman, F. Rainey, P. Kämpfer, M. Trujillo, J. Chun, P. DeVos, B. Hedlund and S. Dedysh). doi:10.1002/9781118960608.gbm00003.pub2

Press release:
Public Outreach: