Where less may be more: how the rare biosphere pulls ecosystems strings

By A. Jousset, C. Bienhold, A. Chatzinotas, Laure Gallien, A. Gobet, V. Kurm, K. Küsel, Matthias C. Rillig, D. Rivett, J. Salles and 5 more. The ISME Journal, 2017

1,127 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Rare species are increasingly recognized as crucial, yet vulnerable components of Earth’s ecosystems. This is also true for microbial communities, which are typically composed of a high number of relatively rare species. Recent studies have demonstrated that rare species can have an over-proportional role in biogeochemical cycles and may be a hidden driver of microbiome function. In this review, we provide an ecological overview of the rare microbial biosphere, including causes of rarity and the impacts of rare species on ecosystem functioning. We discuss how rare species can have a preponderant role for local biodiversity and species turnover with rarity potentially bound to phylogenetically conserved features. Rare microbes may therefore be overlooked keystone species regulating the functioning of host-associated, terrestrial and aquatic environments. We conclude this review with recommendations to guide scientists interested in investigating this rapidly emerging research area.

Subfields: Ecology, Molecular Biology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8237cfbe8f1a0b8ed5b57b4cbf4e43e3708b449b

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Citations in the corpus

Rare microbial taxa as the major drivers of ecosystem multifunctionality in long-term fertilized soils (2020, background): “vulnerable components on Earth are increasingly recognized as drivers of key functions in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, and even in host-associated microbiomes (Jousset et al., 2017).”
A review on the plant microbiome: Ecology, functions, and emerging trends in microbial application (2019, background): “Satellite taxa can be defined on the basis of geographical range, local abundance, and habitat specificity [49].”
Comparative analysis of diversity and environmental niches of soil bacterial, archaeal, fungal and protist communities reveal niche divergences along environmental gradients in the Alps (2021, background): “, 2015) could disrupt ecosystem functioning (Jousset et al., 2017), especially in fast changing ecosystems such as alpine regions.”
Biogeographic patterns of microbial association networks in paddy soil within Eastern China (2020, background): “Recent studies have showed that less abundant or rare species may play important roles in determining genetic diversity, functional diversity and ecosystem stability against environmental perturbation (Jousset et al., 2017).”