The pedigree records from eleven generations were employed to calculate relationship coefficients among all dogs using PEDIG software. The study population had mean relationship coefficients among all individual dogs,0.1%. Cases and controls were chosen with equal proportions of sexes and birth cohorts from the years 2000�C2005. Dogs were 12�C14 months old at radiographic examination. Radiographs and CHD-scores according to the official guidelines of the FCI as well as Ranirestat EDTA-blood samples for parentage testing were collected by the Association for German Shepherd Dogs. Parentage testing is mandatory for all German Shepherd Dogs intended for breeding. For all dogs included in the present study, parentage has been confirmed using an approved set of microsatellites for parentage control. Microorganisms play a key role in biogeochemical cycling and ecosystem functioning. Understanding and predicting the spatial distribution patterns of microbial communities is crucial to anticipate ecosystem responses to global changes. Although these questions are extensively addressed for macro-organisms, microbial biogeography gained renewed interest only recently with the advent of molecular tools. Based on these molecular techniques, some studies GS39783 provided evidence for habitat determinism on microbial community distribution regardless of geographic location. This support the Baas- Becking hypothesis ����everything is everywhere, but, the environment selects����, which assumes large dispersal potential and low extinction rate for microbes. This hypothesis has been questioned with several observations of increasing microbial community divergences with increasing geographic distances, hence suggesting a microbial provincialism. The inconsistency of the results on that topic still fuels the debate, but might actually arise from differences in the spatial and taxonomical scales considered, as suggested for macroorganisms and individual bacterial species. Soils are heterogeneous systems composed of highly diverse microhabitats that may form complex spatial patterns in soil microbial communities. At the landscape scale, these patterns have been suggested to be driven by plant communities.