DOI: 10.5061/dryad.v6wwpzh0j
title: Raw sequence data and OTU tables of soil microorganisms obtained across a summit in the Lesotho highlands

description: Mountain regions represent unique environments characterized by strong
 topographical diversity which drive climatic and environmental variability
 within these environments. These regions thus provide an opportunity to
 explore the relationships between various environmental factors and soil
 microorganisms. In this study, we investigated the impact of
 micro-topographical (i.e., north/south-facing slope aspects and flat
 plateau between them) variations on microbial diversity and community
 structures across a Lesotho mountain summit. Raw sequenced data were
 generated using the Illumina MiSeq platform on DNA extracted from soil
 samples collected across the plateau, north- and south-facing slopes. This
 data was then used for taxonomic classification of the bacterial and
 fungal OTUs for the determination of the alpha- and beta-diversity across
 the slopes. These analyses revealed that a relatively greater bacterial
 and fungal diversity could be observed for the north-facing slope compared
 to the south-facing slope and plateau. While there was no difference in
 group variance of bacterial and fungal community structures across the
 plateau, north- and south-facing slopes. Multiple comparison analyses were
 conducted to determine the impact of various abiotic and geographical
 factors on bacterial and fungal diversity and community structures. These
 analyses indicated that the slope aspect significantly affects bacterial
 and fungal community structures at this location. These results provide an
 original insight into soil microbial diversity in the Lesotho highlands
 and offer an opportunity to investigate the response of soil
 microorganisms to changes in environmental and climatic factors in highly
 variable mountain environments such as the Lesotho highlands.
description: The datasets include the raw sequences of joined paired-end reads
 reorientated in a uniform direction of bacteria and fungi obtained from
 the soil samples across a summit in the Lesotho highlands. DNA was
 initially extracted from the soil samples from which the partial bacterial
 16S rRNA and fungal ITS2 gene amplicon were generated after which
 sequencing was performed using the Illumina Miseq platform by MR DNA
 (www.mrdnalab.co, Shallowater, Texas,
 USA). The raw sequence datasets still contain barcodes, errors, chimeras,
 and short read sequences and the paired-ends have just been
 joined. The raw sequence datasets thus can be processed
 using the MR DNA analysis pipeline for any further analysis. Through this
 process barcodes need to be removed, sequences less than 150 base pairs
 need to be removed, quality filter trimmed sequences, and denoise
 sequences with errors to rectify them. Lastly, chimeric sequences need to
 be removed using the method USEARCH. These sequences are then classified
 into OTUs using BLASTn against a curated database. Raw sequenced datasets
 classified into OTUs are used for subsequent analysis for the
 determination of the taxonomic composition per sites and slopes across the
 sampled summit and for the determination of the alpha- and
 beta-diversity. OTU tables were generated using the
 processed raw sequence datasets for bacteria and fungi. The sequences were
 classified on a basis of 97% sequence identity using BLASTn against a
 curated database derived from Ribosomal Database Project (www.rdp.cme.msu.edu) and NCBI (www.ncbi.nlm.gov). Sequences were
 classified into the taxonomic ranks of kingdom, phylum, class, order,
 family, genus, and species. Respective counts of each OTU per sample
 location were then calculated and provided for each OTU. OTU tables were
 then used for the determination of the alpha- and beta-diversity across
 the short scale of the summit in the Lesotho highlands using R v 3.6.1 (R
 Foundation for Statistical Computing; http://www.R-project.org) and
 RStudio (RStudio Team, 2014).
description: Raw sequence data can be handled with a fasta editor. 
 OTU tables can be opened using Microsoft Excel.