Stochastically reduced communities—Microfluidic compartments as model and investigation tool for soil microorganism growth in structured spaces

Abstract

Microbial community in soil is a complex and dynamic system. Using traditional culture experiments it is difficult to model the stochastic distribution of single organisms of microbial communities in the soil pore's structure. Droplet-based micro-segmented flow technique allows the transfer of the principle of stochastic confinement of stochastically reduced communities from soil micro pores into nanoliter droplets. Microfluidics was applied for the investigation and comparison of soil samples from ancient mining areas by highly resolved concentration-dependent screenings. As results, the generation, incubation, and in situ optical characterization of nanoliter droplets of suspensions of unknown soil microbial communities allowed the identification of different response characteristics toward heavy metal exposition. The investigations proved the high potential of microfluidics for investigations of soil microbial communities. It may be in the future helpful to detect bacteria and consortia with special biosorption characteristics, which could be useful for the development of biological accumulation and detoxification strategies.