Abstract
Effect of zinc on bacterial flora in soil was studied. Cellular fatty acid composition was analyzed with bacteria isolated from a soil incubated with glucose (C source) and ammonium sulfate (N source) in the presence or absence (control) of zinc chloride (1, 000ppm as Zn). Isolated strains were classified by the cluster analysis based on the correlation coefficient (r) computed using their fatty acid composition. At the 0.95r level strains isolated from the control soil were separated into 8 clusters and 2 of them predominated. On the other hand, isolated strains from the soil with zinc added similarly fell into 8 clusters and 4 of them became predominant successively in the incubation. Most of the strains belonging to the clusters obtained in the soil with zinc were zinc-tolerant and had low similarity to those in the control soil.
