Summary

Cellulose is the most abundant biopolymer in terres-trial ecosystems and is degraded by microbial com-munities in soils. However, relatively little is known about the diversity and function of soil prokaryotes that might participate in the overall degradation of this biopolymer. The active cellulolytic and saccharo-lytic Bacteria in an agricultural soil were evaluated by 16S rRNA 13C-based stable isotope probing. Cellu-lose, cellobiose and glucose were mineralized under oxic conditions in soil slurries to carbon dioxide. Under anoxic conditions, these substrates were con-verted primarily to acetate, butyrate, carbon dioxide, hydrogen and traces of propionate and iso-butyrate; the production of these fermentation end-products was concomitant with the apparent reduction of iron(III). [13C]-cellulose was mainly degraded under oxic conditions by novel family-level taxa of the Bacteroidetes and Chloroflexi, and a known family-level taxon of Planctomycetes, whereas degradation under anoxic conditions was facilitated by the Kin-eosporiaceae (Actinobacteria) and cluster III Clostridi-aceae and novel clusters within Bacteroidetes. Active aerobic sub-communities in oxic [13C]-cellobiose and [13C]-glucose treatments were dominated by Intra-sporangiaceae and Micrococcaceae (Actinobacteria) whereas active cluster I Clostridiaceae (Firmicutes) were prevalent in anoxic treatments. A very large number (i.e. 28) of the detected taxa did not closely affiliate with known families, and active Archaea were not detected in any of the treatments. These collective findings suggest that: (i) a large uncultured diversity of soil Bacteria was involved in the utilization of cel-lulose and products of its hydrolysis, (ii) the active saccharolytic community differed phylogenetically from the active cellulolytic community, (iii) oxygen availability impacted differentially on the activity of taxa and (iv) different redox guilds (e.g. fermenters and iron reducers) compete or interact during cellu-lose degradation in aerated soils