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Mining of Microbial Wealth and MetaGenomics pp 101–116Cite as

The Microbiome of the Himalayan Ecosystem

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Abstract

The Himalayas are referred to as the highest mountain ranges in the world. They are also one of the youngest to be formed. It is approximately 2400 km and consists of more than 40 mountains which exceed 7000 m in height. The entire Himalayan mountain range has its unique flora and fauna. Moreover, traditional agricultural practices in the Himalayan Mountains have always been a storehouse of agro-biodiversity. The bacterial diversity of the Himalayan soil has been widely studied using 16S rRNA gene cloning and sequencing. Clone library analysis revealed the dominance of proteobacteria especially genus Pseudomonas and Rhizobium in the soil of high-altitude agroecosystems. Moreover, Bacteroidetes, Chloroflexi, Acidobacteria, Firmicutes, Nitrospira, Planctomycetes, Cyanobacteria, Gemmatimonadetes, Verrucomicrobia, Chlorobi, Actinobacteria, OD1, OP11, and BRC1 were also found in the Himalayan soils. Furthermore, metagenomic studies from these regions revealed the presence of “yet not cultured” microbial communities from these high-altitude niches, thus indicating the need of culture-dependent studies from Himalayan regions.

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Acknowledgement

The work mentioned in this chapter from author group was supported by the National Bureau of Agriculturally Important Microorganisms, India (NBAIM/ICAR), grant to R.G.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Microbiology, Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, Uttarakhand, 263 145, India

    Divya Joshi, Saurabh Kumar, Deep Chandra Suyal & Reeta Goel

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  1. Divya Joshi
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  2. Saurabh Kumar
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  3. Deep Chandra Suyal
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  4. Reeta Goel
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Correspondence to Reeta Goel .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Microbial Biotechnology and Genomics, CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, New Delhi, India

    Vipin Chandra Kalia

  2. Microbial Culture Collection, National Centre for Cell Science, Pune, India

    Yogesh Shouche

  3. Environmental Biotechnology and Genomics Division, National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (CSIR), Nagpur, India

    Hemant J. Purohit

  4. Microbial Culture Collection, National Centre for Cell Science, Pune, India

    Praveen Rahi

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Joshi, D., Kumar, S., Suyal, D.C., Goel, R. (2017). The Microbiome of the Himalayan Ecosystem. In: Kalia, V., Shouche, Y., Purohit, H., Rahi, P. (eds) Mining of Microbial Wealth and MetaGenomics. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5708-3_6

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