Vegetation-Dependent Response to Drought in Salt Marsh Ammonia-Oxidizer Communities.

We investigated the impacts of drought on ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) and bacteria (AOB) in a salt marsh and compared the response to the total bacterial community. We analyzed abundance and community composition of A genes by QPCR and TRFLP, respectively, in three vegetation zones in 2014 (pre-drought), 2016 (drought), and 2017 (post-drought), and analyzed bacterial 16S rRNA genes by QPCR, TRFLP, and MiSeq analyses. AOA and AOB abundance in the zone increased significantly in 2016, while abundance decreased in the tall zone, and showed little change in the short zone.