Microfluidic chips provide visual access to in situ soil ecology

Summary, in English

Microbes govern most soil functions, but investigation of these processes at the scale of their cells has been difficult to accomplish. Here we incubate microfabricated, transparent ‘soil chips’ with soil, or bury them directly in the field. Both soil microbes and minerals enter the chips, which enables us to investigate diverse community interdependences, such as inter-kingdom and food-web interactions, and feedbacks between microbes and the pore space microstructures. The presence of hyphae (‘fungal highways’) strongly and frequently increases the dispersal range and abundance of water-dwelling organisms such as bacteria and protists across air pockets. Physical forces such as water movements, but also organisms and especially fungi form new microhabitats by altering the pore space architecture and distribution of soil minerals in the chip. We show that soil chips hold a large potential for studying in-situ microbial interactions and soil functions, and to interconnect field microbial ecology with laboratory experiments.

• Author: Paola Micaela Mafla-Endara; Carlos Arellano-Caicedo; Kristin Aleklett; Milda Pucetaite; Pelle Ohlsson; Edith C. Hammer
• Department/s: Microbial Ecology; BECC: Biodiversity and Ecosystem services in a Changing Climate; Centre for Environmental and Climate Science (CEC); MEMEG; Department of Biomedical Engineering
• Publishing year: 2021-07-20
• Language: English
• Publication/Series: Communications Biology
• Volume: 4
• Issue: 1
• Links: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s42003-021-02379-5
• Document type: Journal article
• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
• Topic: Soil Science
• Status: Published
• Research group: Microbial Ecology
• ISBN/ISSN/Other: ISSN: 2399-3642