Relationship between soil bacterial community structure based on composition of fatty acid methyl esters and the amount of bacterial biomass in Japanese lowland rice fields

A description of soil bacterial community structure in lowland rice fields is presented and is based on the relationships between fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) profiles, using the culturable bacterial fraction grown on 1/10 PTYG (peptone, tryptone, yeast extract, glucose) agar medium, and the composition of phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) in whole soil. PLFA profiles in soil were used to discriminate between the total microbial community structures in seven soils by principal component analysis. The amount of bacterial PLFA ranged from 4.0 to 15.3 mg kg−1. The degree of culturable bacterial community diversity using FAME profiles with 30 isolates was investigated by the average clustering distances and ranged from 7.7 to 25. Diversity was proportional to the amount of bacterial PLFA.