ORCID Profile
0000-0002-6432-4261
Current Organisation
University of Colorado at Boulder
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Publisher: Wiley
Date: 15-09-2020
DOI: 10.1111/GEB.13173
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 04-2019
DOI: 10.1111/MEC.15060
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 26-10-2018
DOI: 10.1002/ECY.2482
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 06-2012
DOI: 10.1038/NBT.2235
Publisher: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Date: 17-08-2015
Abstract: Human activities have resulted in large increases in the availability of nutrients in terrestrial ecosystems worldwide. Although plant community responses to elevated nutrients have been well studied, soil microbial community responses remain poorly understood, despite their critical importance to ecosystem functioning. Using DNA-sequencing approaches, we assessed the response of soil microbial communities to experimentally added nitrogen and phosphorus at 25 grassland sites across the globe. Our results demonstrate that the composition of these communities shifts in consistent ways with elevated nutrient inputs and that there are corresponding shifts in the ecological attributes of the community members. This study represents an important step forward for understanding the connection between elevated nutrient inputs, shifts in soil microbial communities, and altered ecosystem functioning.
Publisher: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Date: 10-12-2012
Abstract: For centuries ecologists have studied how the ersity and functional traits of plant and animal communities vary across biomes. In contrast, we have only just begun exploring similar questions for soil microbial communities despite soil microbes being the dominant engines of biogeochemical cycles and a major pool of living biomass in terrestrial ecosystems. We used metagenomic sequencing to compare the composition and functional attributes of 16 soil microbial communities collected from cold deserts, hot deserts, forests, grasslands, and tundra. Those communities found in plant-free cold desert soils typically had the lowest levels of functional ersity ( ersity of protein-coding gene categories) and the lowest levels of phylogenetic and taxonomic ersity. Across all soils, functional beta ersity was strongly correlated with taxonomic and phylogenetic beta ersity the desert microbial communities were clearly distinct from the nondesert communities regardless of the metric used. The desert communities had higher relative abundances of genes associated with osmoregulation and dormancy, but lower relative abundances of genes associated with nutrient cycling and the catabolism of plant-derived organic compounds. Antibiotic resistance genes were consistently threefold less abundant in the desert soils than in the nondesert soils, suggesting that abiotic conditions, not competitive interactions, are more important in shaping the desert microbial communities. As the most comprehensive survey of soil taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional ersity to date, this study demonstrates that metagenomic approaches can be used to build a predictive understanding of how microbial ersity and function vary across terrestrial biomes.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 27-10-2021
DOI: 10.1111/GCB.15940
Abstract: Understanding how terrestrial biotic communities have responded to glacial recession since the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) can inform present and future responses of biota to climate change. In Antarctica, the Transantarctic Mountains (TAM) have experienced massive environmental changes associated with glacial retreat since the LGM, yet we have few clues as to how its soil invertebrate‐dominated animal communities have responded. Here, we surveyed soil invertebrate fauna from above and below proposed LGM elevations along transects located at 12 features across the Shackleton Glacier region. Our transects captured gradients of surface ages possibly up to 4.5 million years and the soils have been free from human disturbance for their entire history. Our data support the hypothesis that soils exposed during the LGM are now less suitable habitats for invertebrates than those that have been exposed by deglaciation following the LGM. Our results show that faunal abundance, community composition, and ersity were all strongly affected by climate‐driven changes since the LGM. Soils more recently exposed by the glacial recession (as indicated by distances from present ice surfaces) had higher faunal abundances and species richness than older exposed soils. Higher abundances of the dominant nematode Scottnema were found in older exposed soils, while Eudorylaimus , Plectus , tardigrades, and rotifers preferentially occurred in more recently exposed soils. Approximately 30% of the soils from which invertebrates could be extracted had only Scottnema , and these single‐taxon communities occurred more frequently in soils exposed for longer periods of time. Our structural equation modeling of abiotic drivers highlighted soil salinity as a key mediator of Scottnema responses to soil exposure age. These changes in soil habitat suitability and biotic communities since the LGM indicate that Antarctic terrestrial bio ersity throughout the TAM will be highly altered by climate warming.
Publisher: American Society for Microbiology
Date: 11-2007
DOI: 10.1128/AEM.00358-07
Abstract: Recent studies have highlighted the surprising richness of soil bacterial communities however, bacteria are not the only microorganisms found in soil. To our knowledge, no study has compared the ersities of the four major microbial taxa, i.e., bacteria, archaea, fungi, and viruses, from an in idual soil s le. We used metagenomic and small-subunit RNA-based sequence analysis techniques to compare the estimated richness and evenness of these groups in prairie, desert, and rainforest soils. By grouping sequences at the 97% sequence similarity level (an operational taxonomic unit [OTU]), we found that the archaeal and fungal communities were consistently less even than the bacterial communities. Although total richness levels are difficult to estimate with a high degree of certainty, the estimated number of unique archaeal or fungal OTUs appears to rival or exceed the number of unique bacterial OTUs in each of the collected soils. In this first study to comprehensively survey viral communities using a metagenomic approach, we found that soil viruses are taxonomically erse and distinct from the communities of viruses found in other environments that have been surveyed using a similar approach. Within each of the four microbial groups, we observed minimal taxonomic overlap between sites, suggesting that soil archaea, bacteria, fungi, and viruses are globally as well as locally erse.
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 09-07-2021
Abstract: This study provides new insights into how the soil microbiome of urban greenspaces differs from surrounding natural ecosystems.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 28-11-2015
DOI: 10.1111/ELE.12381
Abstract: Aboveground-belowground interactions exert critical controls on the composition and function of terrestrial ecosystems, yet the fundamental relationships between plant ersity and soil microbial ersity remain elusive. Theory predicts predominantly positive associations but tests within single sites have shown variable relationships, and associations between plant and microbial ersity across broad spatial scales remain largely unexplored. We compared the ersity of plant, bacterial, archaeal and fungal communities in one hundred and forty-five 1 m(2) plots across 25 temperate grassland sites from four continents. Across sites, the plant alpha ersity patterns were poorly related to those observed for any soil microbial group. However, plant beta ersity (compositional dissimilarity between sites) was significantly correlated with the beta ersity of bacterial and fungal communities, even after controlling for environmental factors. Thus, across a global range of temperate grasslands, plant ersity can predict patterns in the composition of soil microbial communities, but not patterns in alpha ersity.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 16-11-2018
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 26-01-2019
DOI: 10.1101/531145
Abstract: Cyanobacteria are key organisms in the evolution of life on Earth, but their distribution and environmental preferences in terrestrial ecosystems remain poorly understood. This lack of knowledge is particularly evident for two recently discovered non-photosynthetic cyanobacterial classes, Melainabacteria and Sericytochromatia, limiting our capacity to predict how these organisms and the important ecosystem functions they perform will respond to ongoing global change. Here, we conducted a global field survey covering a wide range of vegetation types and climatic conditions to identify the environmental factors associated with the distribution of soil cyanobacterial communities. Network analyses revealed three major clusters of cyanobacterial phylotypes, each one dominated by members of one of the extant classes of Cyanobacteria (Oxyphotobacteria, Melainabacteria and Sericytochromatia), suggesting that species within these taxonomic groups share similar environmental preferences. Melainabacteria appear mostly in acidic and humid ecosystems, especially forests, Oxyphotobacteria are prevalent in arid and semiarid areas, and Sericytochromatia are common in hyperarid oligotrophic environments. We used this information to construct a global atlas of soil cyanobacteria. Our results provide novel insights into the ecology and biogeography of soil cyanobacteria and highlight how their global distribution could change in response to increased aridity, a landmark feature of climate change in terrestrial ecosystems worldwide. Cyanobacteria have shaped the history of life on Earth and can be important photosynthesizers and nitrogen fixers in terrestrial ecosystems worldwide. The recent discovery of two non-photosynthetic classes has advanced our understanding of their evolution, but their distribution and environmental preferences remain poorly described. Using a global survey conducted across 237 locations on six continents, we identified three main groups of soil cyanobacteria with contrasting environmental preferences: acidic and humid ecosystems, arid and semiarid areas, and hyperarid oligotrophic ecosystems. We then constructed the first global atlas of soil cyanobacteria, an important advance in our understanding of the ecology and biogeography of these functionally important organisms.
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 19-01-2018
Abstract: Soil bacteria play key roles in regulating terrestrial carbon dynamics, nutrient cycles, and plant productivity. However, the natural histories and distributions of these organisms remain largely undocumented. Delgado-Baquerizo et al. provide a survey of the dominant bacterial taxa found around the world. In soil collections from six continents, they found that only 2% of bacterial taxa account for nearly half of the soil bacterial communities across the globe. These dominant taxa could be clustered into ecological groups of co-occurring bacteria that share habitat preferences. The findings will allow for a more predictive understanding of soil bacterial ersity and distribution. Science , this issue p. 320
Publisher: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Date: 15-03-2019
Abstract: Belowground organisms play critical roles in maintaining multiple ecosystem processes, including plant productivity, decomposition, and nutrient cycling. Despite their importance, however, we have a limited understanding of how and why belowground bio ersity (bacteria, fungi, protists, and invertebrates) may change as soils develop over centuries to millennia (pedogenesis). Moreover, it is unclear whether belowground bio ersity changes during pedogenesis are similar to the patterns observed for aboveground plant ersity. Here we evaluated the roles of resource availability, nutrient stoichiometry, and soil abiotic factors in driving belowground bio ersity across 16 soil chronosequences (from centuries to millennia) spanning a wide range of globally distributed ecosystem types. Changes in belowground bio ersity during pedogenesis followed two main patterns. In lower-productivity ecosystems (i.e., drier and colder), increases in belowground bio ersity tracked increases in plant cover. In more productive ecosystems (i.e., wetter and warmer), increased acidification during pedogenesis was associated with declines in belowground bio ersity. Changes in the ersity of bacteria, fungi, protists, and invertebrates with pedogenesis were strongly and positively correlated worldwide, highlighting that belowground bio ersity shares similar ecological drivers as soils and ecosystems develop. In general, temporal changes in aboveground plant ersity and belowground bio ersity were not correlated, challenging the common perception that belowground bio ersity should follow similar patterns to those of plant ersity during ecosystem development. Taken together, our findings provide evidence that ecological patterns in belowground bio ersity are predictable across major globally distributed ecosystem types and suggest that shifts in plant cover and soil acidification during ecosystem development are associated with changes in belowground bio ersity over centuries to millennia.
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