Fungal-bacterial diversity and microbiome complexity predict ecosystem functioning

By Cameron Wagg, Klaus Schlaeppi, Samir K. Banerjee, E. Kuramae, M. V. D. van der Heijden. Nature Communications, 2019

1,497 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The soil microbiome is highly diverse and comprises up to one quarter of Earth’s diversity. Yet, how such a diverse and functionally complex microbiome influences ecosystem functioning remains unclear. Here we manipulated the soil microbiome in experimental grassland ecosystems and observed that microbiome diversity and microbial network complexity positively influenced multiple ecosystem functions related to nutrient cycling (e.g. multifunctionality). Grassland microcosms with poorly developed microbial networks and reduced microbial richness had the lowest multifunctionality due to fewer taxa present that support the same function (redundancy) and lower diversity of taxa that support different functions (reduced functional uniqueness). Moreover, different microbial taxa explained different ecosystem functions pointing to the significance of functional diversity in microbial communities. These findings indicate the importance of microbial interactions within and among fungal and bacterial communities for enhancing ecosystem performance and demonstrate that the extinction of complex ecological associations belowground can impair ecosystem functioning. There is ongoing interest in linking soil microbial diversity to ecosystem function. Here the authors manipulate the diversity and composition of microbial communities and show that complex microbial networks contribute more to ecosystem multifunctionality than simpler or low-diversity networks.

Subfields: Ecology, Molecular Biology, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/370d8120c08cae02fedfa807b42b7a8c1eb7bbab

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Citations in the corpus

Specialized metabolic functions of keystone taxa sustain soil microbiome stability (2021, background): “A recent study [73] suggested that soil microbiome diversity and the associated microbial network complexity are positively related to ecosystem multifunctionality because the functional redundancy decreased when microbial diversity was low, especially for the functions that were only supported by f”
Effects of plant community history, soil legacy and plant diversity on soil microbial communities (2020, background): “Soil biota are critical drivers of soil processes such as nutrient cycling, thereby supporting primary productivity and diversity (Haines-Young & Potschin, 2010; van der Heijden et al., 2008; Wagg et al., 2019).”