Category: Alpine

  • We’ve got Acidobacteria

    We’ve got Acidobacteria

    Acidobacteria are highly abundant in most soil bacterial communities, but are rarely cultured in the lab. The ones that have been cultured grow very slowly and generally require specialized growth media. Acidobacteria probably represent the ultimate K-selected microbe: they very gradually build up populations and then hang on forever, dividing once a month or so…

  • Rate-yield tradeoffs and soil respiration in a high elevation forest

    Rate-yield tradeoffs and soil respiration in a high elevation forest

    While studying seasonal changes in microbial growth kinetics in soils of a subalpine forest in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, I noticed a negative relationship between maximum growth rate and growth efficiency, or yield (the fraction of carbon consumed that is converted into biomass, as opposed to being respired as CO2).  Turns out this is a…