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Title: Evolutionary history constrains microbial traits across environmental variation

Abstract

Organisms influence ecosystems, from element cycling to disturbance regimes, to trophic interactions, to energy partitioning. Microorganisms are part of this influence, and understanding their ecology in nature requires studying traits of these organisms quantitatively in their natural habitats, a challenging task, but one which new approaches now make possible. Here, we show that growth rate and carbon assimilation rate of soil microorganisms are more influenced by evolutionary history than by climate, even across a broad climatic gradient spanning major temperate life zones, from mixed conifer forest to high desert grassland. Most of the explained variation (~50% to ~90%) in growth rate and carbon assimilation rate was attributable to difference among taxonomic groups indicating a strong influence of evolutionary history, and taxonomic groupings were more predictive for organisms responding to resource addition. With added carbon and nitrogen substrates, differences among taxonomic groups explained ~8 times more variance in growth rate than did the differences in ecosystem type. Taxon-specific growth and carbon assimilation rates were highly intercorrelated across the four ecosystems, constrained by the taxonomic identity of the organisms, such that plasticity driven by environment was limited across ecosystems varying in temperature, precipitation, and dominant vegetation. Taken together our results suggest that,more » similar to multicellular life, the traits of prokaryotes in their natural habitats are constrained by evolutionary history to a greater degree than environmental variation.« less

Authors:
ORCiD logo [1];  [2];  [2]; ORCiD logo [3];  [2];  [2];  [2];  [1];  [4]; ORCiD logo [5]; ORCiD logo [4]; ORCiD logo [2]
  1. West Virginia Univ., Morgantown, WV (United States)
  2. Northern Arizona Univ., Flagstaff, AZ (United States)
  3. Northern Arizona Univ., Flagstaff, AZ (United States); Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA (United States)
  4. Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
  5. Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States); Northern Arizona Univ., Flagstaff, AZ (United States); Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER). Biological Systems Science Division
OSTI Identifier:
1557394
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1557393; OSTI ID: 1567269
Report Number(s):
LLNL-JRNL-771085; PNNL-SA-147133
Journal ID: ISSN 2397-334X; 962701
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC52-07NA27344; SC0016207; AC05-76RL01830
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Nature Ecology and Evolution
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 3; Journal Issue: 7; Journal ID: ISSN 2397-334X
Publisher:
Nature Publishing Group
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; 59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES

Citation Formats

Morrissey, Ember M., Mau, Rebecca L., Hayer, Michaela, Liu, Xiao-Jun Allen, Schwartz, Egbert, Dijkstra, Paul, Koch, Benjamin J., Allen, Kara, Blazewicz, Steven J., Hofmockel, Kirsten, Pett-Ridge, Jennifer, and Hungate, Bruce A. Evolutionary history constrains microbial traits across environmental variation. United States: N. p., 2019. Web. doi:10.1038/s41559-019-0918-y.
Morrissey, Ember M., Mau, Rebecca L., Hayer, Michaela, Liu, Xiao-Jun Allen, Schwartz, Egbert, Dijkstra, Paul, Koch, Benjamin J., Allen, Kara, Blazewicz, Steven J., Hofmockel, Kirsten, Pett-Ridge, Jennifer, & Hungate, Bruce A. Evolutionary history constrains microbial traits across environmental variation. United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-019-0918-y
Morrissey, Ember M., Mau, Rebecca L., Hayer, Michaela, Liu, Xiao-Jun Allen, Schwartz, Egbert, Dijkstra, Paul, Koch, Benjamin J., Allen, Kara, Blazewicz, Steven J., Hofmockel, Kirsten, Pett-Ridge, Jennifer, and Hungate, Bruce A. Mon . "Evolutionary history constrains microbial traits across environmental variation". United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-019-0918-y. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1557394.
@article{osti_1557394,
title = {Evolutionary history constrains microbial traits across environmental variation},
author = {Morrissey, Ember M. and Mau, Rebecca L. and Hayer, Michaela and Liu, Xiao-Jun Allen and Schwartz, Egbert and Dijkstra, Paul and Koch, Benjamin J. and Allen, Kara and Blazewicz, Steven J. and Hofmockel, Kirsten and Pett-Ridge, Jennifer and Hungate, Bruce A.},
abstractNote = {Organisms influence ecosystems, from element cycling to disturbance regimes, to trophic interactions, to energy partitioning. Microorganisms are part of this influence, and understanding their ecology in nature requires studying traits of these organisms quantitatively in their natural habitats, a challenging task, but one which new approaches now make possible. Here, we show that growth rate and carbon assimilation rate of soil microorganisms are more influenced by evolutionary history than by climate, even across a broad climatic gradient spanning major temperate life zones, from mixed conifer forest to high desert grassland. Most of the explained variation (~50% to ~90%) in growth rate and carbon assimilation rate was attributable to difference among taxonomic groups indicating a strong influence of evolutionary history, and taxonomic groupings were more predictive for organisms responding to resource addition. With added carbon and nitrogen substrates, differences among taxonomic groups explained ~8 times more variance in growth rate than did the differences in ecosystem type. Taxon-specific growth and carbon assimilation rates were highly intercorrelated across the four ecosystems, constrained by the taxonomic identity of the organisms, such that plasticity driven by environment was limited across ecosystems varying in temperature, precipitation, and dominant vegetation. Taken together our results suggest that, similar to multicellular life, the traits of prokaryotes in their natural habitats are constrained by evolutionary history to a greater degree than environmental variation.},
doi = {10.1038/s41559-019-0918-y},
journal = {Nature Ecology and Evolution},
number = 7,
volume = 3,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Jun 17 00:00:00 EDT 2019},
month = {Mon Jun 17 00:00:00 EDT 2019}
}

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