The autoplaque or autolysis of bacterial cell influences the evolutionary potential of clinically important bacteria. It serves as a selection pressure on a bacterial community and provides social goods (nutrients, secondary metabolites, free DNA) in environment. Therefore, it has a major impact on the ecological fitness of microbial communities; however its prevalence in microbial communities of degraded ecosystems is not known. Therefore, we purified bacterial communities from spatially distributed soil (10m scale) and those associated with soil particle size fractions (gravel, sand, silt and clay) of abandoned mine and assessed the prevalence of autoplaque phenomenon. To our knowledge, this is the first report on the occurrence of autoplaques phenomenon in the members of Micrococcaceae. The study reports the microbial communities of degraded mine possess a substantial level of autoplaque phenomenon. It was found that in spite of taxonomic closeness, the particle-associated bacterial communities differ in their autoplaque properties. However, the spatially distributed bacterial communities showed a similar autoplaque property. The in-depth analyses of these bacterial communities will help to identify environmental and physiological factors affecting the autoplaque phenomenon. Such studies would be useful to improve the microbial technologies for environmental restoration of degraded ecosystems.

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