First round of Sanger sequences from cultures (2/9/12):
order #102087 — order #102093 — order #102097
Second round of Sanger sequences (2/21/12): order #102291
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Questions we asked (paraphrased):
1. Are urban stream or riparian microbial communities compositionally different from forested stream communities?
If so, which taxa are responsible for shift?
2. How similar are riparian soil and stream sediment microbial communities collected from the same location?
Does the degree of compositional similarity change depending upon watershed land use?
3. Are microbial communities in frequently flooded riparian areas compositionally different from areas which are rarely flooded?
4. Does stream restoration affect stream or riparian microbial community composition?
Process
In a first attempt to address these questions we visited 6 stream reaches on January 20th ad 23rd, 2012
2 sites on Ellerbe Creek
– within a restored stream segment in Northgate Park downstream of the Durham dog park
– upstream of the restored segment and dog park
2 sites on Goose Creek
– within a restored stream segment in Long Meadow Park
– downstream of the restored stream segment
1 site on Stony Creek in the Eno Division of Duke Forest
1 site on a small Tributary to Mud Creek, upstream of the wooden bridge on Duke Forest Road from Gate 3 in the Durham Division
At each site, we collected soil from the riparian zone (3 cores combined in a bag) and sediments from the stream (sediments collected with a metal scoopula every pace for 30 paces in the center of the channel). Where we could see two well defined riparian benches (a low bench and a more hydrologically isolated upper bench) we collected 2 sets of cores and stored them separately.
DNA was extracted from 2 subsamples of all soil and sediment samples using a MoBio power extraction kit
= 32 extractions
| Urban Watershed | Forested Watershed | |
| Stream Sediments | Goose Unrestored x 2 (GUS) | Mud Creek Tributary x 2 (MTS) |
| Goose Restored x 2 (GRS) | Stony Creek x 2 (STS) | |
| Ellerbe Unrestored x2 (EUS) | ||
| Ellerbe Restored x 2 (ERS) | ||
| Low Riparian Bench | Goose Restored x 2 (GRR-L) | Mud Creek Tributary (a channel sand bar) x2 (MTR-L) |
| Ellerbe Unrestored x2 (EUR-L | Stony Creek x2(STR-L) | |
| Ellerbe Restored x2 (ERR-L)Goose Unrestored(GUR-L) | ||
| Upper Riparian Bench | Goose Unrestored x2 (GUR-U) | Mud Creek Tributary high bank x2(MTR-U) |
| Goose Restored x 2 (GRR-U) | ||
| Ellerbe Unrestored x2 (EUR-U) | ||
| Ellerbe Restored x2 (ERR-U) |
