Metagenomic profiling of bacterial diversity and community structure in termite mounds and surrounding soils.

The study focuses on analysis of the compositional and diversity of bacteria in termite mound soils in comparison with the surrounding soils to verify the assertion that the high nutrient concentrations in termite mound soils influence a complex diversity of microorganisms. Here, whole DNA was extracted from soil samples collected from termite mounds and their surrounding soils which were 10 m apart and subsequently, sequenced using shotgun metagenomic approach. Our findings showed that both environments have several soil bacterial phyla in common. However, Proteobacteria and Actinobacteria significantly dominated the termite mound soils and the surrounding soils, respectively, with Tenericutes peculiar to only the termite mound soils. Furthermore, Bergeyella, Gloeothece, Thalassospira, and Glaciecola genera were exclusively identified in the termite mound soil samples. Diversity analysis showed that bacterial composition was different among the four sites (phyla level). This study also revealed a lot of unclassified groups of bacteria and this could point to the presence of potentially novel species. The differences observed in the bacterial structure and diversity from this study may be ascribed to variances in the physicochemical nature existing between the two environments. Mapping out schemes to culture these unclassified groups of bacteria discovered from this study would possibly set the platform for the discovery of novel bacteria for biotechnological applications.