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Title: Microbial legacies alter decomposition in response to simulated global change

Journal Article · · The ISME Journal
 [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [2];  [3];  [1];  [1];  [1]
  1. Univ. of California, Irvine, CA (United States)
  2. Univ. of California, Irvine, CA (United States); California State Univ. (CalState), Long Beach, CA (United States)
  3. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)

Terrestrial ecosystem models assume that microbial communities respond instantaneously, or are immediately resilient, to environmental change. Here we tested this assumption by quantifying the resilience of a leaf litter community to changes in precipitation or nitrogen availability. By manipulating composition within a global change experiment, we decoupled the legacies of abiotic parameters versus that of the microbial community itself. After one rainy season, more variation in fungal composition could be explained by the original microbial inoculum than the litterbag environment (18% versus 5.5% of total variation). This compositional legacy persisted for 3 years, when 6% of the variability in fungal composition was still explained by the microbial origin. In contrast, bacterial composition was generally more resilient than fungal composition. Microbial functioning (measured as decomposition rate) was not immediately resilient to the global change manipulations; decomposition depended on both the contemporary environment and rainfall the year prior. Finally, using metagenomic sequencing, we showed that changes in precipitation, but not nitrogen availability, altered the potential for bacterial carbohydrate degradation, suggesting why the functional consequences of the two experiments may have differed. Predictions of how terrestrial ecosystem processes respond to environmental change may thus be improved by considering the legacies of microbial communities.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1413718
Journal Information:
The ISME Journal, Vol. 11, Issue 2; ISSN 1751-7362
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 86 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (15)

Dispersal alters bacterial diversity and composition in a natural community journal October 2017
Drought Stress and Root-Associated Bacterial Communities journal January 2018
Historical Drought Affects Microbial Population Dynamics and Activity During Soil Drying and Re-Wet journal September 2019
Genomic adaptation of marine phytoplankton populations regulates phosphate uptake journal January 2020
Decomposition responses to climate depend on microbial community composition journal November 2018
Microbiome functioning depends on individual and interactive effects of the environment and community structure journal July 2018
Flooding and prolonged drought have differential legacy impacts on soil nitrogen cycling, microbial communities and plant productivity journal August 2018
Necrobiome framework for bridging decomposition ecology of autotrophically and heterotrophically derived organic matter journal September 2018
Drought increases the frequencies of fungal functional genes related to carbon and nitrogen acquisition journal November 2018
Stochastic microbial community assembly decreases biogeochemical function posted_content October 2017
Drought and its legacy modulate the post‐fire recovery of soil functionality and microbial community structure in a Mediterranean shrubland journal February 2019
Fungal communities do not recover after removing invasive Alliaria petiolata (garlic mustard) journal June 2019
Environmental filtering by pH and soil nutrients drives community assembly in fungi at fine spatial scales journal November 2017
Necrobiome Framework for Bridging Decomposition Ecology of Autotrophically and Heterotrophically Derived Organic Matter journal January 2019
Microbiome functioning depends on individual and interactive effects of the environment and community structure. text January 2019