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Science 24 June 2005:
Vol. 308. no. 5730, p. 1884
DOI: 10.1126/science.1111318
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Brevia

Larger Islands House More Bacterial Taxa

Thomas Bell,1,3 Duane Ager,2 Ji-Inn Song,2,4 Jonathan A. Newman,3* Ian P. Thompson,2 Andrew K. Lilley,1 Christopher J. van der Gast2{dagger}

The power law that describes the relationship between species richness and area size is one of the few generalizations in ecology, but recent studies show that this relationship differs for microbes. We demonstrate that the natural bacterial communities inhabiting small aquatic islands (treeholes) do indeed follow the species-area law. The result requires a re-evaluation of the current understanding of how natural microbial communities operate and implies that analogous processes structure both microbial communities and communities of larger organisms.

1 Molecular Microbial Ecology Section, Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Mansfield Road, Oxford, OX1 3SR, UK.
2 Environmental Biotechnology Section, Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Mansfield Road, Oxford, OX1 3SR, UK.
3 Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PS, UK.
4 Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PJ, UK.

* Present address: Department of Environmental Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1, Canada.

{dagger} To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: cjvdg{at}ceh.ac.uk

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)