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Title: Functional Molecular Ecological Networks

Journal Article · · mBio (Online)
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [4];  [4]
  1. Univ. of Oklahoma, Norman, OK (United States). Inst. for Environmental Genomics. Dept. of Botany and Microbiology; Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Earth Sciences Division; Tsinghua Univ., Beijing (China). Dept. of Environmental Science and Engineering
  2. Univ. of Oklahoma, Norman, OK (United States). Inst. for Environmental Genomics. Dept. of Botany and Microbiology; Glomics Inc., Norman, OK (United States)
  3. Clemson Univ., SC (United States). School of Computing
  4. Univ. of Oklahoma, Norman, OK (United States). Inst. for Environmental Genomics. Dept. of Botany and Microbiology

Biodiversity and its responses to environmental changes are central issues in ecology and for society. Almost all microbial biodiversity research focuses on “species” richness and abundance but not on their interactions. Although a network approach is powerful in describing ecological interactions among species, defining the network structure in a microbial community is a great challenge. Also, although the stimulating effects of elevated CO2 (eCO2) on plant growth and primary productivity are well established, its influences on belowground microbial communities, especially microbial interactions, are poorly understood. Here, a random matrix theory (RMT)-based conceptual framework for identifying functional molecular ecological networks was developed with the high-throughput functional gene array hybridization data of soil microbial communities in a long-term grassland FACE (free air, CO2 enrichment) experiment. Our results indicate that RMT is powerful in identifying functional molecular ecological networks in microbial communities. Both functional molecular ecological networks under eCO2 and ambient CO2 (aCO2) possessed the general characteristics of complex systems such as scale free, small world, modular, and hierarchical. However, the topological structures of the functional molecular ecological networks are distinctly different between eCO2 and aCO2, at the levels of the entire communities, individual functional gene categories/groups, and functional genes/sequences, suggesting that eCO2 dramatically altered the network interactions among different microbial functional genes/populations. Such a shift in network structure is also significantly correlated with soil geochemical variables. In short, elucidating network interactions in microbial communities and their responses to environmental changes is fundamentally important for research in microbial ecology, systems microbiology, and global change.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Univ. of Oklahoma, Norman, OK (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER). Earth and Environmental Systems Science Division
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231; SC0004601
OSTI ID:
1626091
Journal Information:
mBio (Online), Vol. 1, Issue 4; ISSN 2150-7511
Publisher:
American Society for Microbiology (ASM)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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