Influence of altitude on soil microbial community variability

The concerns on climate change and in particular the increase of global temperature are inflaming the public debate among scientist in recent years, especially regarding the possible effect on environment, animals, plants and biodiversity. Microbial populations in soil are climate-dependent. Changes in soil microbial population could influence plant growth, leading to non-visible effects in short-term on agriculture system, but dramatically changing the soil ecosystem in the long run. We aim at determining the effect of temperature and its relation with altitude on the microbial community living in three different transects of altitude cultivated with grapevines (cv. Chardonnay) in Trentino region. The final goal is to determine if temperature has a major impact on microbial richness and variability. Soil samples were collected in each altitude transect and cultivable microorganisms’ abundance and total community variability was analysed. A first representative sampling has been carried out in November 2009, followed by a systematic sampling along a W-shaped design in February 2010. In February bacterial and fungal growth showed a significant difference due to the altitude (P < 0.05) inside each site, but not a general trend was measured comparing the three different transects. Overall comparison of bacterial and fungal growth from November to February showed a significant decrease which is attributable to the different soil temperature in different periods. Denaturant gradient gel electrophoresis of total fungi was set up with a firstly selected set of primer to assess fungal variability. Isolation of morphologically different fungi allowed DGGE marker creation