ORCID Profile
0000-0002-6499-576X
Current Organisation
Instituto de Recursos Naturales y Agrobiología de Sevilla
Does something not look right? The information on this page has been harvested from data sources that may not be up to date. We continue to work with information providers to improve coverage and quality. To report an issue, use the Feedback Form.
Research Topics
In Research Link Australia (RLA), "Research Topics" refer to ANZSRC FOR and SEO codes. These topics are either sourced from ANZSRC FOR and SEO codes listed in researchers' related grants or generated by a large language model (LLM) based on their publications.
Top 5 Research Topics
ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)
Microbial Ecology | Soil Biology | Microbiology | Soil biology | Microbial ecology | Ecosystem function | Biological Control | Microbiology |
ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)
Farmland, Arable Cropland and Permanent Cropland Soils | Control of Plant Pests, Diseases and Exotic Species in Farmland, Arable Cropland and Permanent Cropland Environments | Farmland, Arable Cropland and Permanent Cropland Land Management
Related Links
Publications
Rainfall frequency and soil water availability regulate soil methane and nitrous oxide fluxes from a native forest exposed to elevated carbon dioxide
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 29-06-2021
Abstract: Free‐air carbon dioxide enrichment (FACE) experiments in terrestrial ecosystems have demonstrated ecological responses of key ecosystem processes to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO 2 ). However, CO 2 fertilization responses in field conditions have seldom included methane (CH 4 ) and nitrous oxide (N 2 O), particularly in natural and mature forests, which are expected to have an important role in climate change mitigation. Herein, we aimed to capture the effect of elevated CO 2 (eCO 2 ambient vs. +150 ppm) on long‐term temporal dynamics of CH 4 and N 2 O fluxes, followed by identification of climo‐edaphic factors explaining feedback responses. To achieve this, continuous monitoring of greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes using a manual chamber technique, over a 3‐year period was implemented in a mature dryland Eucalypt forest FACE (EucFACE) facility in Australia. The relationship between CH 4 and N 2 O fluxes with rainfall indices and soil properties was also explored since they directly impact the microbial communities in the soil responsible for CH 4 and N 2 O net emissions. Our results showed that in 3 years of eCO 2 treatment, the amount and frequency of rainfall predicted GHG emissions in this native forest. We also found a significant reduction in CH 4 sink (15%–25%) for some of the years as well as an overall treatment effect index reduction in N 2 O emissions under eCO 2 . Higher frequency of rain events with lower intensity led to highest CH 4 sink followed by lowest N 2 O emissions due to fewer wet–dry cycles. Of all the environmental variables included, soil moisture, rainfall and pH were the main predictors of net CH 4 and N 2 O emissions. Methane flux was also strongly influenced by soil texture. Our findings highlight the need to account for reduced forest CH 4 sink under eCO 2 in dryland ecosystems, which has implications for GHG budget predictions under future climate conditions. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.
It is elemental: soil nutrient stoichiometry drives bacterial diversity
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 03-02-2017
Abstract: It is well established that resource quantity and elemental stoichiometry play major roles in shaping below and aboveground plant bio ersity, but their importance for shaping microbial ersity in soil remains unclear. Here, we used statistical modeling on a regional database covering 179 locations and six ecosystem types across Scotland to evaluate the roles of total carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) availabilities and ratios, together with land use, climate and biotic and abiotic factors, in determining regional scale patterns of soil bacterial ersity. We found that bacterial ersity and composition were primarily driven by variation in soil resource stoichiometry (total C:N:P ratios), itself linked to different land uses, and secondarily driven by other important bio ersity drivers such as climate, soil spatial heterogeneity, soil pH, root influence (plant-soil microbe interactions) and microbial biomass (soil microbe-microbe interactions). In aggregate, these findings provide evidence that nutrient stoichiometry is a strong predictor of bacterial ersity and composition at a regional scale.
Increasing aridity reduces soil microbial diversity and abundance in global drylands
Publisher: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Date: 08-12-2015
Abstract: Climate change is increasing the degree of aridity in drylands, which occupy 41% of Earth’s surface and support 38% of its population. Soil bacteria and fungi are largely responsible for key ecosystem services, including soil fertility and climate regulation, yet their responses to changes in aridity are poorly understood. Using a field survey conducted in drylands worldwide and DNA-sequencing approaches, we found that increases in aridity reduce the ersity and abundance of soil bacteria and fungi. This study represents an important advancement in our understanding of soil microbial communities and their likely responses to ongoing climate change.
Temperature thresholds drive the global distribution of soil fungal decomposers.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 31-01-2022
DOI: 10.1111/GCB.16096
Abstract: Unraveling the biogeographic pattern of soil fungal decomposers along temperature gradients-in smooth linearity or an abrupt jump-can help us connect the global carbon cycle to global warming. Through a standardized global field survey, we identify the existence of temperature thresholds that control the global distribution of soil fungal decomposers, leading to abrupt reductions in their proportion (i.e., the relative abundance in the fungal community) immediately after crossing particular air and soil temperature thresholds. For ex le, small increases over the mean annual temperature threshold of ~9°C result in abrupt reductions in their proportion, paralleling a similar temperature threshold for soil carbon content. We further find that the proportion of soil fungal decomposers is more sensitive to temperature increases under arid conditions. Given the positive correlation between the global distributions of fungal decomposers and soil heterotrophic respiration, the reported temperature-driven abrupt reductions in fungal decomposers could further suppress their driven soil decomposition processes and reduce carbon fluxes from soils to the atmosphere with implications for climate change feedback. This work not only advances the current knowledge on the global distribution of soil fungal decomposers, but also highlights that small changes in temperature around certain thresholds can lead to potential unexpected consequences in global carbon cycling under projected climate change.
Publisher Correction: Soil contamination in nearby natural areas mirrors that in urban greenspaces worldwide
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 26-04-2023
Relative importance of urban and non-urban land-use types for potential denitrification derived N2O: insights from a regional study
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 09-2018
DOI: 10.1017/S175569101800066X
Abstract: Identifying the relative importance of urban and non-urban land-use types for potential denitrification derived N 2 O at a regional scale is critical for quantifying the impacts of human activities on nitrous oxide (N 2 O) emission under changing environments. In this study we used a regional dataset from China including 197 soil s les and six land-use types to evaluate the main predictors (land use, heavy metals, soil pH, soil moisture, substrate availability, functional and broad microbial abundances) of potential denitrification using multivariate and pathway analysis. Our results provide empirical evidence that soils on farms have the greatest potential denitrifying ability (PDA) (10.92±6.08ng N 2 O-N·g –1 dry soil·min –1 ) followed by urban soil (6.80±5.35ng N 2 O-N·g –1 dry soil·min –1 ). Our models indicate that land use (low vs. high human activity), followed by total nitrogen (TN) and heavy metals (Cu, Zn, Pb, Cd) was the most important driver of PDA. In addition, our path analysis suggests that at least part of the impacts of land use on potential denitrification were mediated via microbial abundance, soil pH and substrates including TN, dissolved organic carbon and nitrate. This study identifies the main predictors of denitrification at a regional scale which is needed to quantify the impact of human activities on ecosystem functionality under changing conditions.
Livestock activity increases exotic plant richness, but wildlife increases native richness, with stronger effects under low productivity
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 12-09-2018
Microbial richness and composition independently drive soil multifunctionality
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 20-07-2017
Drought consistently alters the composition of soil fungal and bacterial communities in grasslands from two continents
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 26-03-2018
DOI: 10.1111/GCB.14113
Abstract: The effects of short-term drought on soil microbial communities remain largely unexplored, particularly at large scales and under field conditions. We used seven experimental sites from two continents (North America and Australia) to evaluate the impacts of imposed extreme drought on the abundance, community composition, richness, and function of soil bacterial and fungal communities. The sites encompassed different grassland ecosystems spanning a wide range of climatic and soil properties. Drought significantly altered the community composition of soil bacteria and, to a lesser extent, fungi in grasslands from two continents. The magnitude of the fungal community change was directly proportional to the precipitation gradient. This greater fungal sensitivity to drought at more mesic sites contrasts with the generally observed pattern of greater drought sensitivity of plant communities in more arid grasslands, suggesting that plant and microbial communities may respond differently along precipitation gradients. Actinobateria, and Chloroflexi, bacterial phyla typically dominant in dry environments, increased their relative abundance in response to drought, whereas Glomeromycetes, a fungal class regarded as widely symbiotic, decreased in relative abundance. The response of Chlamydiae and Tenericutes, two phyla of mostly pathogenic species, decreased and increased along the precipitation gradient, respectively. Soil enzyme activity consistently increased under drought, a response that was attributed to drought-induced changes in microbial community structure rather than to changes in abundance and ersity. Our results provide evidence that drought has a widespread effect on the assembly of microbial communities, one of the major drivers of soil function in terrestrial ecosystems. Such responses may have important implications for the provision of key ecosystem services, including nutrient cycling, and may result in the weakening of plant-microbial interactions and a greater incidence of certain soil-borne diseases.
Symbiotic status alters fungal eco‐evolutionary offspring trajectories
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 17-06-2023
DOI: 10.1111/ELE.14271
Abstract: Despite host‐fungal symbiotic interactions being ubiquitous in all ecosystems, understanding how symbiosis has shaped the ecology and evolution of fungal spores that are involved in dispersal and colonization of their hosts has been ignored in life‐history studies. We assembled a spore morphology database covering over 26,000 species of free‐living to symbiotic fungi of plants, insects and humans and found more than eight orders of variation in spore size. Evolutionary transitions in symbiotic status correlated with shifts in spore size, but the strength of this effect varied widely among phyla. Symbiotic status explained more variation than climatic variables in the current distribution of spore sizes of plant‐associated fungi at a global scale while the dispersal potential of their spores is more restricted compared to free‐living fungi. Our work advances life‐history theory by highlighting how the interaction between symbiosis and offspring morphology shapes the reproductive and dispersal strategies among living forms.
Soil fungal abundance and plant functional traits drive fertile island formation in global drylands
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 25-10-2017
Cross-biome antibiotic resistance decays after millions of years of soil development
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 30-03-2022
Microbial diversity drives multifunctionality in terrestrial ecosystems
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 28-01-2016
DOI: 10.1038/NCOMMS10541
Abstract: Despite the importance of microbial communities for ecosystem services and human welfare, the relationship between microbial ersity and multiple ecosystem functions and services (that is, multifunctionality) at the global scale has yet to be evaluated. Here we use two independent, large-scale databases with contrasting geographic coverage (from 78 global drylands and from 179 locations across Scotland, respectively), and report that soil microbial ersity positively relates to multifunctionality in terrestrial ecosystems. The direct positive effects of microbial ersity were maintained even when accounting simultaneously for multiple multifunctionality drivers (climate, soil abiotic factors and spatial predictors). Our findings provide empirical evidence that any loss in microbial ersity will likely reduce multifunctionality, negatively impacting the provision of services such as climate regulation, soil fertility and food and fibre production by terrestrial ecosystems.
Microbial regulation of the soil carbon cycle: evidence from gene–enzyme relationships
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 10-05-2016
The Contribution of Biotic Factors in Explaining the Global Distribution of Inorganic Carbon in Surface Soils
Publisher: American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Date: 10-2023
DOI: 10.1029/2023GB007957
Increases in aridity lead to drastic shifts in the assembly of dryland complex microbial networks
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 23-12-2019
DOI: 10.1002/LDR.3453
Rhizosphere-driven increase in nitrogen and phosphorus availability under elevated atmospheric CO2 in a mature Eucalyptus woodland
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 09-03-2017
Heritable microbiome variation is correlated with source environment in locally adapted maize varieties
Publisher: Research Square Platform LLC
Date: 28-04-2023
DOI: 10.21203/RS.3.RS-2844807/V1
Abstract: Beneficial interactions with microorganisms are pivotal for crop performance and resilience. However, it remains unclear how heritable the microbiome is with respect to the host plant genotype and to what extent host genetic mechanisms can modulate plant-microbe interactions in the face of environmental stress. Here, we surveyed 3,168 root and rhizosphere microbiome s les from 129 accessions of locally adapted Zea mays, sourced from erse habitats and grown under control and different stress conditions. We quantified treatment and host genotype effects on the microbiome. Plant genotype and source environment were predictive of microbiome abundance. Genome wide association analysis identified host genetic variants linked to both rhizosphere microbiome abundance and source environment. We identified transposon insertions in a candidate gene linked to both the abundance of a keystone microbe Massilia and source total soil nitrogen, finding specific Massilia alone can contribute to root development, biomass production and nitrogen resilience. We conclude that locally adapted maize varieties exert patterns of genetic control on their root and rhizosphere microbiomes that follow variation in their home environments, consistent with a role in tolerance to prevailing stress.
The global distribution and environmental drivers of the soil antibiotic resistome
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 12-12-2022
DOI: 10.1186/S40168-022-01405-W
Abstract: Little is known about the global distribution and environmental drivers of key microbial functional traits such as antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). Soils are one of Earth’s largest reservoirs of ARGs, which are integral for soil microbial competition, and have potential implications for plant and human health. Yet, their ersity and global patterns remain poorly described. Here, we analyzed 285 ARGs in soils from 1012 sites across all continents and created the first global atlas with the distributions of topsoil ARGs. We show that ARGs peaked in high latitude cold and boreal forests. Climatic seasonality and mobile genetic elements, associated with the transmission of antibiotic resistance, were also key drivers of their global distribution. Dominant ARGs were mainly related to multidrug resistance genes and efflux pump machineries. We further pinpointed the global hotspots of the ersity and proportions of soil ARGs. Together, our work provides the foundation for a better understanding of the ecology and global distribution of the environmental soil antibiotic resistome.
Climatic seasonality challenges the stability of microbial‐driven deep soil carbon accumulation across China
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 16-05-2023
DOI: 10.1111/GCB.16760
Abstract: Microbial residues contribute to the long‐term stabilization of carbon in the entire soil profile, helping to regulate the climate of the planet however, how sensitive these residues are to climatic seasonality remains virtually unknown, especially for deep soils across environmental gradients. Here, we investigated the changes of microbial residues along soil profiles (0–100 cm) from 44 typical ecosystems with a wide range of climates (~3100 km transects across China). Our results showed that microbial residues account for a larger portion of soil carbon in deeper (60–100 cm) vs. shallower (0–30 and 30–60 cm) soils. Moreover, we find that climate especially challenges the accumulation of microbial residues in deep soils, while soil properties and climate share their roles in controlling the residue accumulation in surface soils. Climatic seasonality, including positive correlations with summer precipitation and maximum monthly precipitation, as well as negative correlations with temperature annual range, are important factors explaining microbial residue accumulation in deep soils across China. In particular, summer precipitation is the key regulator of microbial‐driven carbon stability in deep soils, which has 37.2% of relative independent effects on deep‐soil microbial residue accumulation. Our work provides novel insights into the importance of climatic seasonality in driving the stabilization of microbial residues in deep soils, challenging the idea that deep soils as long‐term carbon reservoirs can buffer climate change.
Multidimensional Drivers of Mercury Distribution in Global Surface Soils: Insights from a Global Standardized Field Survey
Publisher: American Chemical Society (ACS)
Date: 28-07-2023
Phylotype diversity within soil fungal functional groups drives ecosystem stability.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 09-05-2022
DOI: 10.1038/S41559-022-01756-5
Abstract: Soil fungi are fundamental to plant productivity, yet their influence on the temporal stability of global terrestrial ecosystems, and their capacity to buffer plant productivity against extreme drought events, remain uncertain. Here we combined three independent global field surveys of soil fungi with a satellite-derived temporal assessment of plant productivity, and report that phylotype richness within particular fungal functional groups drives the stability of terrestrial ecosystems. The richness of fungal decomposers was consistently and positively associated with ecosystem stability worldwide, while the opposite pattern was found for the richness of fungal plant pathogens, particularly in grasslands. We further demonstrated that the richness of soil decomposers was consistently positively linked with higher resistance of plant productivity in response to extreme drought events, while that of fungal plant pathogens showed a general negative relationship with plant productivity resilience/resistance patterns. Together, our work provides evidence supporting the critical role of soil fungal ersity to secure stable plant production over time in global ecosystems, and to buffer against extreme climate events.
Identity of plant, lichen and moss species connects with microbial abundance and soil functioning in maritime Antarctica
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 21-06-2018
Microbial communities in terrestrial surface soils are not widely limited by carbon
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 05-06-2023
DOI: 10.1111/GCB.16765
Abstract: Microbial communities in soils are generally considered to be limited by carbon (C), which could be a crucial control for basic soil functions and responses of microbial heterotrophic metabolism to climate change. However, global soil microbial C limitation (MCL) has rarely been estimated and is poorly understood. Here, we predicted MCL, defined as limited availability of substrate C relative to nitrogen and/or phosphorus to meet microbial metabolic requirements, based on the thresholds of extracellular enzyme activity across 847 sites (2476 observations) representing global natural ecosystems. Results showed that only about 22% of global sites in terrestrial surface soils show relative C limitation in microbial community. This finding challenges the conventional hypothesis of ubiquitous C limitation for soil microbial metabolism. The limited geographic extent of C limitation in our study was mainly attributed to plant litter, rather than soil organic matter that has been processed by microbes, serving as the dominant C source for microbial acquisition. We also identified a significant latitudinal pattern of predicted MCL with larger C limitation at mid‐ to high latitudes, whereas this limitation was generally absent in the tropics. Moreover, MCL significantly constrained the rates of soil heterotrophic respiration, suggesting a potentially larger relative increase in respiration at mid‐ to high latitudes than low latitudes, if climate change increases primary productivity that alleviates MCL at higher latitudes. Our study provides the first global estimates of MCL, advancing our understanding of terrestrial C cycling and microbial metabolic feedback under global climate change.
Ecological clusters of soil taxa within bipartite networks are highly sensitive to climatic conditions in global drylands
Publisher: The Royal Society
Date: 27-06-2022
Abstract: Determining the influence of climate in driving the global distribution of soil microbial communities is fundamental to help predict potential shifts in soil food webs and ecosystem functioning under global change scenarios. Herein, we used a global survey including 80 dryland ecosystems from six continents, and found that the relative abundance of ecological clusters formed by taxa involved in bacteria-fungi and bacteria-cercozoa bipartite networks was highly sensitive to changes in temperature and aridity. Importantly, such a result was maintained when controlling for soil, geographical location and vegetation attributes, being pH and soil organic carbon important determinants of the relative abundance of the ecological clusters. We also identified potential global associations between important soil microbial taxa, which can be useful to support the conservation of terrestrial ecosystems under global change scenarios. Our results suggest that increases in temperature and aridity such as those forecasted for the next decades in drylands could potentially lead to drastic changes in the community composition of functionally important bipartite networks within soil food webs. This could have important but unknown implications for the provision of key ecosystem functions and associated services driven by the organisms forming these networks if other taxa cannot cope with them. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Ecological complexity and the biosphere: the next 30 years’.
Links between soil microbial communities, functioning, and plant nutrition under altered rainfall in Australian grassland
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 14-10-2020
DOI: 10.1002/ECM.1424
Lack of functional redundancy in the relationship between microbial diversity and ecosystem functioning
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 09-05-2016
The proportion of soil-borne pathogens increases with warming at the global scale
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 11-05-2020
Blind spots in global soil biodiversity and ecosystem function research
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 03-08-2020
DOI: 10.1038/S41467-020-17688-2
Abstract: Soils harbor a substantial fraction of the world’s bio ersity, contributing to many crucial ecosystem functions. It is thus essential to identify general macroecological patterns related to the distribution and functioning of soil organisms to support their conservation and consideration by governance. These macroecological analyses need to represent the ersity of environmental conditions that can be found worldwide. Here we identify and characterize existing environmental gaps in soil taxa and ecosystem functioning data across soil macroecological studies and 17,186 s ling sites across the globe. These data gaps include important spatial, environmental, taxonomic, and functional gaps, and an almost complete absence of temporally explicit data. We also identify the limitations of soil macroecological studies to explore general patterns in soil bio ersity-ecosystem functioning relationships, with only 0.3% of all s ling sites having both information about bio ersity and function, although with different taxonomic groups and functions at each site. Based on this information, we provide clear priorities to support and expand soil macroecological research.
Biogenic factors explain soil carbon in paired urban and natural ecosystems worldwide
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 27-03-2023
Effects of diet on gut microbiota of soil collembolans
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2019
DOI: 10.1016/J.SCITOTENV.2019.04.104
Abstract: The importance of diet in regulating the gut microbiome of globally distributed and functionally important soil generalist invertebrates such as collembolans remain poorly understood. Here, we studied a model collembolan (Folsomia candida) and found that diet (bacteria, plant litters, yeast, mixed food) is a critical factor in regulating the microbial ersity and community composition of this important soil organism. Collembolans fed with litter exhibited the lowest bacterial ersity and were dominated by Ochrobactrum. Conversely, collembolans fed with mixed diets resulted in the highest bacterial ersity. Our findings further suggest that microbial communities associated with different diets are linked to different levels of collembolan fitness. For ex le, the relative abundance of the genera of unclassified Thermogemmatisporaceae, Brevibacillus, and Novosphingobium were positively correlated with growth of the collembolans. Together, our work provides evidence that diet is a major force controlling the gut microbiome of collembolans, and is a good environmental predictor for collembolan growth, with implications for ecosystem functioning in terrestrial environments.
New insights into the role of microbial community composition in driving soil respiration rates
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2018
Grazing and ecosystem service delivery in global drylands
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 25-11-2022
Abstract: Grazing represents the most extensive use of land worldwide. Yet its impacts on ecosystem services remain uncertain because pervasive interactions between grazing pressure, climate, soil properties, and bio ersity may occur but have never been addressed simultaneously. Using a standardized survey at 98 sites across six continents, we show that interactions between grazing pressure, climate, soil, and bio ersity are critical to explain the delivery of fundamental ecosystem services across drylands worldwide. Increasing grazing pressure reduced ecosystem service delivery in warmer and species-poor drylands, whereas positive effects of grazing were observed in colder and species-rich areas. Considering interactions between grazing and local abiotic and biotic factors is key for understanding the fate of dryland ecosystems under climate change and increasing human pressure.
Polar soils exhibit distinct patterns in microbial diversity and dominant phylotypes
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2022
Multiple elements of soil biodiversity drive ecosystem functions across biomes
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 03-02-2020
Climate legacies drive global soil carbon stocks in terrestrial ecosystems
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 07-04-2017
Abstract: Our findings indicate the importance of paleoclimatic information to improve quantitative predictions of global soil C stocks.
Consistent responses of soil microbial taxonomic and functional attributes to mercury pollution across China
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 18-10-2018
Biocrust‐forming mosses mitigate the impact of aridity on soil microbial communities in drylands: observational evidence from three continents
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 02-04-2018
DOI: 10.1111/NPH.15120
Abstract: Recent research indicates that increased aridity linked to climate change will reduce the ersity of soil microbial communities and shift their community composition in drylands, Earth's largest biome. However, we lack both a theoretical framework and solid empirical evidence of how important biotic components from drylands, such as biocrust-forming mosses, will regulate the responses of microbial communities to expected increases in aridity with climate change. Here we report results from a cross-continental (North America, Europe and Australia) survey of 39 locations from arid to humid ecosystems, where we evaluated how biocrust-forming mosses regulate the relationship between aridity and the community composition and ersity of soil bacteria and fungi in dryland ecosystems. Increasing aridity was negatively related to the richness of fungi, and either positively or negatively related to the relative abundance of selected microbial phyla, when biocrust-forming mosses were absent. Conversely, we found an overall lack of relationship between aridity and the relative abundance and richness of microbial communities under biocrust-forming mosses. Our results suggest that biocrust-forming mosses mitigate the impact of aridity on the community composition of globally distributed microbial taxa, and the ersity of fungi. They emphasize the importance of maintaining biocrusts as a sanctuary for soil microbes in drylands.
Plant-driven niche differentiation of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria and archaea in global drylands
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 27-06-2019
Experimental evidence of strong relationships between soil microbial communities and plant germination
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 17-04-2021
Abstract: Plant‐associated microbes play essential roles in nutrient uptake and plant productivity, but their role in driving plant germination, a critical stage in the plant life cycle, is still poorly understood. We used data from a large‐scale, field‐based soil seed bank study to examine the relationship among plants germinating from the seed bank and soil microbial community composition. We combined this with an experiment using 34 laboratory‐based microcosms whereby sterile soil was inoculated with microbes from different field sites to examine how microbes affect the germination of nine plant species. The community composition of plants in the soil seed bank was highly and significantly associated with bacterial and fungal community composition, with stronger correlations for soil beneath plant canopies. Microbes predicted a unique portion of the variation in the community composition of germinants after accounting for differences in environmental variables. The strongest correlations among microbes and plant functional traits included those related to perenniality, growth form, plant size, root type and seed shape. Our microcosm study showed that different plant species had their own associated germination microbiome, and most plant–microbe interactions were positive during germination. Synthesis . Our study provides evidence for intimate relationships between plant and soil bio ersity during germination. Our work fills an important knowledge gap for plant–microbe interactions and reveals valuable insights into the shared natural history of plants and microbes in terrestrial ecosystems.
A global atlas of the dominant bacteria found in soil
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
Microbial assemblies associated with temperature sensitivity of soil respiration along an altitudinal gradient
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 05-2022
DOI: 10.1016/J.SCITOTENV.2022.153257
Abstract: Identifying the drivers of the response of soil microbial respiration to warming is integral to accurately forecasting the carbon-climate feedbacks in terrestrial ecosystems. Microorganisms are the fundamental drivers of soil microbial respiration and its response to warming however, the specific microbial communities and properties involved in the process remain largely undetermined. Here, we identified the associations between microbial community and temperature sensitivity (Q
Global ecological predictors of the soil priming effect
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 02-08-2019
DOI: 10.1038/S41467-019-11472-7
Abstract: Identifying the global drivers of soil priming is essential to understanding C cycling in terrestrial ecosystems. We conducted a survey of soils across 86 globally-distributed locations, spanning a wide range of climates, biotic communities, and soil conditions, and evaluated the apparent soil priming effect using 13 C-glucose labeling. Here we show that the magnitude of the positive apparent priming effect (increase in CO 2 release through accelerated microbial biomass turnover) was negatively associated with SOC content and microbial respiration rates. Our statistical modeling suggests that apparent priming effects tend to be negative in more mesic sites associated with higher SOC contents. In contrast, a single-input of labile C causes positive apparent priming effects in more arid locations with low SOC contents. Our results provide solid evidence that SOC content plays a critical role in regulating apparent priming effects, with important implications for the improvement of C cycling models under global change scenarios.
Soil microbial communities drive the resistance of ecosystem multifunctionality to global change in drylands across the globe
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 17-09-2017
DOI: 10.1111/ELE.12826
Abstract: The relationship between soil microbial communities and the resistance of multiple ecosystem functions linked to C, N and P cycling (multifunctionality resistance) to global change has never been assessed globally in natural ecosystems. We collected soils from 59 dryland ecosystems worldwide to investigate the importance of microbial communities as predictor of multifunctionality resistance to climate change and nitrogen fertilisation. Multifunctionality had a lower resistance to wetting-drying cycles than to warming or N deposition. Multifunctionality resistance was regulated by changes in microbial composition (relative abundance of phylotypes) but not by richness, total abundance of fungi and bacteria or the fungal: bacterial ratio. Our results suggest that positive effects of particular microbial taxa on multifunctionality resistance could potentially be controlled by altering soil pH. Together, our work demonstrates strong links between microbial community composition and multifunctionality resistance in dryland soils from six continents, and provides insights into the importance of microbial community composition for buffering effects of global change in drylands worldwide.
Ecological drivers of soil microbial diversity and soil biological networks in the Southern Hemisphere
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 12-02-2018
DOI: 10.1002/ECY.2137
Abstract: The ecological drivers of soil bio ersity in the Southern Hemisphere remain underexplored. Here, in a continental survey comprising 647 sites, across 58 degrees of latitude between tropical Australia and Antarctica, we evaluated the major ecological patterns in soil bio ersity and relative abundance of ecological clusters within a co-occurrence network of soil bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes. Six major ecological clusters (modules) of co-occurring soil taxa were identified. These clusters exhibited strong shifts in their relative abundances with increasing distance from the equator. Temperature was the major environmental driver of the relative abundance of ecological clusters when Australia and Antarctica are analyzed together. Temperature, aridity, soil properties and vegetation types were the major drivers of the relative abundance of different ecological clusters within Australia. Our data supports significant reductions in the ersity of bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes in Antarctica vs. Australia linked to strong reductions in temperature. However, we only detected small latitudinal variations in soil bio ersity within Australia. Different environmental drivers regulate the ersity of soil archaea (temperature and soil carbon), bacteria (aridity, vegetation attributes and pH) and eukaryotes (vegetation type and soil carbon) across Australia. Together, our findings provide new insights into the mechanisms driving soil bio ersity in the Southern Hemisphere.
Ecosystem functions are related to tree diversity in forests but soil biodiversity in open woodlands and shrublands
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 26-10-2021
Abstract: Millions of trees are expected to be planted in forested and non‐forested ecosystems during the United Nations Decade of Restoration. Trees and soil organisms are known to interact, and are both crucial for maintaining multiple ecosystem functions. However, little is known about how the bidirectional relationships among above‐ and below‐ground ersity and ecosystem functions differ across forested and non‐forested ecosystems. We collected data from 126 sites from humid to arid areas in eastern Australia to explore bidirectional relationships among above‐ground (richness of trees and other plants) and below‐ground (richness of bacteria, fungi, invertebrate, protist) ersity and multiple ecosystem functions (multifunctionality, litter and labile carbon storage, nutrient pools, decomposition, groundstorey plant biomass production, soil stability) in forested (tree cover %) and non‐forested (tree cover ≤10%, open woodlands, shrublands) systems. We found that the relative importance of above‐ and below‐ground ersity differed among forested and non‐forested systems. Ecosystem functions, such as litter and labile carbon storage and soil stability, were associated mainly with tree richness in forested systems. By comparison, ecosystem functions of non‐forests were related to the richness of soil organisms. Such bidirectional bio ersity–ecosystem function relationships varied with the target function, and the relationships among ecosystem functions and the relative abundance of species varied with tree and soil taxa. The richness of other plants (i.e. all plants excluding trees) and soil organisms was positively coupled in forests only, but there were no linkages among above‐ and below‐ground ersity and ecosystem functions in non‐forests for groundstorey plant biomass production. Furthermore, increases in aridity and soil pH further weakened the bio ersity–ecosystem function relationships in forested and non‐forested systems, by suppressing above‐ground ersity and bacterial richness, respectively. Synthesis . Our study provides strong empirical evidence that the bidirectional relationships among above‐ and below‐ground ersity and ecosystem functions are highly variable across ecosystem and function types. Moreover, our study demonstrates that soil bio ersity is relatively more important than tree ersity in supporting ecosystem functions in non‐forested systems. This suggests that conservation of soil bio ersity is critical for maintaining the functioning of open woodland and shrubland systems.
Livestock grazing and forest structure regulate the assembly of ecological clusters within plant networks in eastern Australia
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 07-2018
DOI: 10.1111/JVS.12665
Increasing the number of stressors reduces soil ecosystem services worldwide
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 16-03-2023
DOI: 10.1038/S41558-023-01627-2
Abstract: Increasing the number of environmental stressors could decrease ecosystem functioning in soils. Yet this relationship has not been globally assessed outside laboratory experiments. Here, using two independent global standardized field surveys, and a range of natural and human factors, we test the relationship between the number of environmental stressors exceeding different critical thresholds and the maintenance of multiple ecosystem services across biomes. Our analysis shows that having multiple stressors, from medium levels ( %), negatively and significantly correlates with impacts on ecosystem services and that having multiple stressors crossing a high-level critical threshold (over 75% of maximum observed levels) reduces soil bio ersity and functioning globally. The number of environmental stressors exceeding the % threshold was consistently seen as an important predictor of multiple ecosystem services, therefore improving prediction of ecosystem functioning. Our findings highlight the need to reduce the dimensionality of the human footprint on ecosystems to conserve bio ersity and function.
Changes in ecosystem properties after post‐fire management strategies in wildfire‐affected Mediterranean forests
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 18-01-2021
Intransitive competition is common across five major taxonomic groups and is driven by productivity, competitive rank and functional traits
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 16-04-2018
Ecosystem type and resource quality are more important than global change drivers in regulating early stages of litter decomposition
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2019
Human impacts and aridity differentially alter soil N availability in drylands worldwide
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 07-10-2015
DOI: 10.1111/GEB.12382
Aridity Decouples C:N:P Stoichiometry Across Multiple Trophic Levels in Terrestrial Ecosystems
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 12-06-2017
Palaeoclimate explains a unique proportion of the global variation in soil bacterial communities
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 07-08-2017
DOI: 10.1038/S41559-017-0259-7
Abstract: The legacy impacts of past climates on the current distribution of soil microbial communities are largely unknown. Here, we use data from more than 1,000 sites from five separate global and regional datasets to identify the importance of palaeoclimatic conditions (Last Glacial Maximum and mid-Holocene) in shaping the current structure of soil bacterial communities in natural and agricultural soils. We show that palaeoclimate explains more of the variation in the richness and composition of bacterial communities than current climate. Moreover, palaeoclimate accounts for a unique fraction of this variation that cannot be predicted from geographical location, current climate, soil properties or plant ersity. Climatic legacies (temperature and precipitation anomalies from the present to ~20 kyr ago) probably shape soil bacterial communities both directly and indirectly through shifts in soil properties and plant communities. The ability to predict the distribution of soil bacteria from either palaeoclimate or current climate declines greatly in agricultural soils, highlighting the fact that anthropogenic activities have a strong influence on soil bacterial ersity. We illustrate how climatic legacies can help to explain the current distribution of soil bacteria in natural ecosystems and advocate that climatic legacies should be considered when predicting microbial responses to climate change.
Contrasting effects of two mammalian soil engineers on microbial communities
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 24-11-2017
DOI: 10.1111/AEC.12467
Identifying environmental drivers of greenhouse gas emissions under warming and reduced rainfall in boreal–temperate forests
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 24-07-2017
Intraspecies variation in a widely distributed tree species regulates the responses of soil microbiome to different temperature regimes
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 02-02-2018
Abstract: Plant characteristics in different provenances within a single species may vary in response to climate change, which might alter soil microbial communities and ecosystem functions. We conducted a glasshouse experiment and grew seedlings of three provenances (temperate, subtropical and tropical origins) of a tree species (i.e., Eucalyptus tereticornis) at different growth temperatures (18, 21.5, 25, 28.5, 32 and 35.5°C) for 54 days. At the end of the experiment, bacterial and fungal community composition, ersity and abundance were characterized. Measured soil functions included surrogates of microbial respiration, enzyme activities and nutrient cycling. Using Permutation multivariate analysis of variance (PerMANOVA) and network analysis, we found that the identity of tree provenances regulated both structure and function of soil microbiomes. In some cases, tree provenances substantially affected the response of microbial communities to the temperature treatments. For ex le, we found significant interactions of temperature and tree provenance on bacterial community and relative abundances of Chloroflexi and Zygomycota, and inorganic nitrogen. Microbial abundance was altered in response to increasing temperature, but was not affected by tree provenances. Our study provides novel evidence that even a small variation in biotic components (i.e., intraspecies tree variation) can significantly influence the response of soil microbial community composition and specific soil functions to global warming.
Identity of biocrust species and microbial communities drive the response of soil multifunctionality to simulated global change
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-2017
Decoupling of soil nutrient cycles as a function of aridity in global drylands
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 10-2013
DOI: 10.1038/NATURE12670
Abstract: The biogeochemical cycles of carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) are interlinked by primary production, respiration and decomposition in terrestrial ecosystems. It has been suggested that the C, N and P cycles could become uncoupled under rapid climate change because of the different degrees of control exerted on the supply of these elements by biological and geochemical processes. Climatic controls on biogeochemical cycles are particularly relevant in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid ecosystems (drylands) because their biological activity is mainly driven by water availability. The increase in aridity predicted for the twenty-first century in many drylands worldwide may therefore threaten the balance between these cycles, differentially affecting the availability of essential nutrients. Here we evaluate how aridity affects the balance between C, N and P in soils collected from 224 dryland sites from all continents except Antarctica. We find a negative effect of aridity on the concentration of soil organic C and total N, but a positive effect on the concentration of inorganic P. Aridity is negatively related to plant cover, which may favour the dominance of physical processes such as rock weathering, a major source of P to ecosystems, over biological processes that provide more C and N, such as litter decomposition. Our findings suggest that any predicted increase in aridity with climate change will probably reduce the concentrations of N and C in global drylands, but increase that of P. These changes would uncouple the C, N and P cycles in drylands and could negatively affect the provision of key services provided by these ecosystems.
On the relative importance of resource availability and habitat connectivity as drivers of soil biodiversity in Mediterranean ecosystems
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 24-04-2023
Abstract: Soil biota influences nutrient cycling and climate regulation and represents an important fraction of global bio ersity, yet we know very little about how this soil biota responds to habitat fragmentation and degradation of habitat quality. We studied the response of different soil trophic groups (microbes and soil fauna), and their trophic structure, to changes in their habitat derived from forest long‐term management and extensive tree die‐off in a Mediterranean ecosystem. Specifically, we evaluated changes in (i) habitat size, (ii) habitat resource availability and heterogeneity and (iii) habitat connectivity. To do this, we s led the soil biota of 43 holm oak trees (and five open interspaces) differing in size, quality, heterogeneity, connectivity and the effect of die‐off (healthy or affected). We sorted soil biota by trophic group and related their richness to habitat characteristics. Seven of the 12 trophic groups evaluated increased their species richness with soil organic carbon content, which was the most frequently selected driver of soil biota (both microbial and faunal richness). Habitat connectivity positively affected the richness of larger organisms (fauna) and plant attributes (richness, productivity and specific leaf area) also showed significant but contrasting effects depending on the group evaluated. Due to the idiosyncratic responses of different groups, the entire trophic structure (microbes and fauna) was affected by a more complex set of factors than most trophic groups in isolation, including interactions between habitat size and resource availability or connectivity. A major factor influencing habitat resource availability was the die‐off of the dominant tree species (drastically altering tree productivity). We found weaker and more negative relationships between trophic groups under trees suffering from die‐off than beneath healthy trees, particularly between microbial rather than faunal groups. Synthesis . We provide a comprehensive assessment of the response of key members of the soil food web to habitat fragmentation and tree die‐off (landscape‐level plant–soil interactions), illustrating the major role of soil carbon, habitat connectivity and tree die‐off in driving soil bio ersity and trophic structure.
Rare microbial taxa as the major drivers of ecosystem multifunctionality in long-term fertilized soils
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2020
Experimentally testing the species-habitat size relationship on soil bacteria: A proof of concept
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2018
Global diversity and ecological drivers of lichenised soil fungi
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 20-05-2021
DOI: 10.1111/NPH.17433
Abstract: Lichens play crucial roles in sustaining the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems however, the ersity and ecological factors associated with lichenised soil fungi remain poorly understood. To address this knowledge gap, we used a global field survey including information on fungal sequences of topsoils from 235 terrestrial ecosystems. We identified 880 lichenised fungal phylotypes across nine biomes ranging from deserts to tropical forests. The ersity and proportion of lichenised soil fungi peaked in shrublands and dry grasslands. Aridity index, plant cover and soil pH were the most important factors associated with the distribution of lichenised soil fungi. Furthermore, we identified Endocarpon , Verrucaria and Rinodina as some of the most dominant lichenised genera across the globe, and they had similar environmental preferences to the lichenised fungal community. In addition, precipitation seasonality and mean diurnal temperature range were also important in predicting the proportion of these dominant genera. Using this information, we were able to create the first global maps of the richness and the proportion of dominant genera of lichenised fungi. This work provides new insight into the global distribution and ecological preferences of lichenised soil fungi, and supports their dominance in drylands across the globe.
Microbial taxonomic and functional attributes consistently predict soil CO2 emissions across contrasting croplands
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2020
DOI: 10.1016/J.SCITOTENV.2019.134885
Abstract: Despite distinct roles of soil microbes in regulating carbon (C) respiration in erse environments, it remains unclear whether microbial taxonomic and functional attributes can consistently predict soil C emissions across contrasting ecosystems. Here, we conducted a large-scale s ling event across two contrasting croplands (rice and wheat-corn crop rotation) to identify specific soil microbial phylotypes and functional genes associated with soil respiration rates. The results of structural equation modeling indicated that bacterial community composition had a strong link with C respiration rates in the two contrasting cropland types however, this link was weaker for fungal communities. More importantly, we found that the relative abundances of bacterial Solirubrobacterales_480-2, Myxococcales_mle1-27 and fungal Westerdykella had consistently negative correlation with respiration rates across paddy and upland soils. We also identified taxa that are significantly correlated to C respiration in the paddy (e.g. Methylocaldum) and upland soils (e.g. Kribbella), respectively. Further, we found multiple associations between functional genes involved in microbial C metabolism and soil respiration rates. Our findings provide novel insights into understanding microbial predictors of soil CO
Microbial autotrophy explains large‐scale soil CO2 fixation
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 13-10-2022
DOI: 10.1111/GCB.16452
Abstract: Microbial communities play critical roles in fixing carbon from the atmosphere and fixing it in the soils. However, the large‐scale variations and drivers of these microbial communities remain poorly understood. Here, we conducted a large‐scale survey across China and found that soil autotrophic organisms are critical for explaining CO 2 fluxes from the atmosphere to soils. In particular, we showed that large‐scale variations in CO 2 fixation rates are highly correlated to those in autotrophic bacteria and phototrophic protists. Paddy soils, supporting a larger proportion of obligate bacterial and protist autotrophs, display four‐fold of CO 2 fixation rates over upland and forest soils. Precipitation and pH, together with key ecological clusters of autotrophic microbes, also played important roles in controlling CO 2 fixation. Our work provides a novel quantification on the contribution of terrestrial autotrophic microbes to soil CO 2 fixation processes at a large scale, with implications for global carbon regulation under climate change.
Detecting macroecological patterns in bacterial communities across independent studies of global soils
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 20-11-2017
DOI: 10.1038/S41564-017-0062-X
Abstract: The emergence of high-throughput DNA sequencing methods provides unprecedented opportunities to further unravel bacterial bio ersity and its worldwide role from human health to ecosystem functioning. However, despite the abundance of sequencing studies, combining data from multiple in idual studies to address macroecological questions of bacterial ersity remains methodically challenging and plagued with biases. Here, using a machine-learning approach that accounts for differences among studies and complex interactions among taxa, we merge 30 independent bacterial data sets comprising 1,998 soil s les from 21 countries. Whereas previous meta-analysis efforts have focused on bacterial ersity measures or abundances of major taxa, we show that disparate licon sequence data can be combined at the taxonomy-based level to assess bacterial community structure. We find that rarer taxa are more important for structuring soil communities than abundant taxa, and that these rarer taxa are better predictors of community structure than environmental factors, which are often confounded across studies. We conclude that combining data from independent studies can be used to explore bacterial community dynamics, identify potential 'indicator' taxa with an important role in structuring communities, and propose hypotheses on the factors that shape bacterial biogeography that have been overlooked in the past.
Do grazing intensity and herbivore type affect soil health? Insights from a semi-arid productivity gradient
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 12-2017
Tracking endolithic microbiomes to support the sustainability and functioning of global drylands
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 14-09-2023
DOI: 10.1002/SAE2.12069
Plant Species Richness and Ecosystem Multifunctionality in Global Drylands
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 13-01-2012
Abstract: The relationship between species richness and the functional properties of their ecosystems has often been studied at small scales in experimental plots. Maestre et al. (p. 214 see the Perspective by Midgley ) performed field measurements at 224 dryland sites from six continents and assessed 14 ecosystem functions related to carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus cycling. Positive relationships were observed between perennial plant species richness and ecosystem functionality. The relative importance of bio ersity was found to be as large as, or larger than, many key abiotic variables. Thus, preservation of plant bio ersity is important to buffer negative effects of climate change and desertification in drylands, which collectively cover 41% of Earth's land surface and support over 38% of the human population.
Multiple trade‐offs regulate the effects of woody plant removal on biodiversity and ecosystem functions in global rangelands
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 06-10-2019
DOI: 10.1111/GCB.14839
Abstract: Woody plant encroachment is a major land management issue. Woody removal often aims to restore the original grassy ecosystem, but few studies have assessed the role of woody removal on ecosystem functions and bio ersity at global scales. We collected data from 140 global studies and evaluated how different woody plant removal methods affected bio ersity (plant and animal ersity) and ecosystem functions (plant production, hydrological function, soil carbon) across global rangelands. Our results indicate that the impact of removal is strongly context dependent, varying with the specific response variable, removal method, and traits of the target species. Over all treatments, woody plant removal increased grass biomass and total groundstorey ersity. Physical and chemical removal methods increased grass biomass and total groundstorey biomass (i.e., non‐woody plants, including grass biomass), but burning reduced animal ersity. The impact of different treatment methods declined with time since removal, particularly for total groundstorey biomass. Removing pyramid‐shaped woody plants increased total groundstorey biomass and hydrological function but reduced total groundstorey ersity. Environmental context (e.g., aridity and soil texture) indirectly controlled the effect of removal on biomass and bio ersity by influencing plant traits such as plant shape, allelopathic, or roots types. Our study demonstrates that a one‐size‐fits‐all approach to woody plant removal is not appropriate, and that consideration of woody plant identity, removal method, and environmental context is critical for optimizing removal outcomes. Applying this knowledge is fundamental for maintaining erse and functional rangeland ecosystems as we move toward a drier and more variable climate.
The influence of soil age on ecosystem structure and function across biomes
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 18-09-2020
DOI: 10.1038/S41467-020-18451-3
Abstract: The importance of soil age as an ecosystem driver across biomes remains largely unresolved. By combining a cross-biome global field survey, including data for 32 soil, plant, and microbial properties in 16 soil chronosequences, with a global meta-analysis, we show that soil age is a significant ecosystem driver, but only accounts for a relatively small proportion of the cross-biome variation in multiple ecosystem properties. Parent material, climate, vegetation and topography predict, collectively, 24 times more variation in ecosystem properties than soil age alone. Soil age is an important local-scale ecosystem driver however, environmental context, rather than soil age, determines the rates and trajectories of ecosystem development in structure and function across biomes. Our work provides insights into the natural history of terrestrial ecosystems. We propose that, regardless of soil age, changes in the environmental context, such as those associated with global climatic and land-use changes, will have important long-term impacts on the structure and function of terrestrial ecosystems across biomes.
Temporal dynamics in biotic and functional recovery following mining
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 19-04-2022
Abstract: Human‐induced disturbance has substantially influenced the structure and function of terrestrial ecosystems globally. However, the extent to which multiple ecosystem functions (multifunctionality) recover following anthropogenic disturbance (ecosystem recovery) remains poorly understood. We report on the first study examining the temporal dynamics in recovery of multifunctionality from 3 to 12 years after the commencement of rehabilitation following mining‐induced disturbance, and relate this information to changes in biota. We examined changes in 57 biotic (plants, microbial) and functional (soil) attributes associated with bio ersity and ecosystem services at four open‐cut coal mines in eastern Australia. Increasing time since commencement of rehabilitation was associated with increases in overall multifunctionality, soil microbial abundance, plant productivity, plant structure and soil stability, but not nutrient cycling, soil carbon sequestration nor soil nutrients. However, the temporal responses of in idual ecosystem properties varied widely, from strongly positive (e.g. litter cover, fine and coarse frass, seed biomass, microbial and fungal biomass) to strongly negative (groundstorey foliage cover). We also show that sites with more developed biota tended to have greater ecosystem multifunctionality. Moreover, recovery of plant litter was closely associated with recovery of most microbial components, soil integrity and soil respiration. Overall, however, rehabilitated sites still differed from reference ecosystems a decade after commencement of rehabilitation. Synthesis and applications . The dominant role of plant and soil biota and litter cover in relation to functions associated with soil respiration, microbial function, soil integrity and C and N pools suggests that recovering bio ersity is a critically important priority in rehabilitation programs. Nonetheless, the slow recovery of most functions after a decade indicates that rehabilitation after open‐cut mining is likely to protracted.
Water deficit affects inter-kingdom microbial connections in plant rhizosphere
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 17-05-2022
Abstract: The frequency and severity of drought are increasing due to anthropogenic climate change and are already limiting cropping system productivity in many regions around the world. Few microbial groups within plant microbiomes can potentially contribute towards the fitness and productivity of their hosts under abiotic stress events including water deficits. However, microbial communities are complex and integrative work considering the multiple co‐existing groups of organisms is needed to better understand how the entire microbiome responds to environmental stresses. We hypothesize that water deficit stress will differentially shape bacterial, fungal, and protistan microbiome composition and influence inter‐kingdom microbial interactions in the rhizospheres of corn and sugar beet. We used licon sequencing to profile bacterial, fungal, and protistan communities in corn and sugar beet rhizospheres grown under irrigated and water deficit conditions. The water deficit treatment had a stronger influence than host species on bacterial composition, whereas the opposite was true for protists. These results indicate that different microbial kingdoms have variable responses to environmental stress and host factors. Water deficit also influenced intra‐ and inter‐kingdom microbial associations, wherein the protist taxa formed a separate cluster under water deficit conditions. Our findings help elucidate the influence of environmental and host drivers of bacterial, fungal, and protistan community assembly and co‐occurrence in agricultural rhizosphere environments.
Biocrust‐forming mosses mitigate the negative impacts of increasing aridity on ecosystem multifunctionality in drylands
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 09-10-2015
DOI: 10.1111/NPH.13688
Abstract: The increase in aridity predicted with climate change will have a negative impact on the multiple functions and services (multifunctionality) provided by dryland ecosystems worldwide. In these ecosystems, soil communities dominated by mosses, lichens and cyanobacteria (biocrusts) play a key role in supporting multifunctionality. However, whether biocrusts can buffer the negative impacts of aridity on important biogeochemical processes controlling carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P) pools and fluxes remains largely unknown. Here, we conducted an empirical study, using s les from three continents (North America, Europe and Australia), to evaluate how the increase in aridity predicted by climate change will alter the capacity of biocrust‐forming mosses to modulate multiple ecosystem processes related to C, N and P cycles. Compared with soil surfaces lacking biocrusts, biocrust‐forming mosses enhanced multiple functions related to C, N and P cycling and storage in semiarid and arid, but not in humid and dry‐subhumid, environments. Most importantly, we found that the relative positive effects of biocrust‐forming mosses on multifunctionality compared with bare soil increased with increasing aridity. These results were mediated by plant cover and the positive effects exerted by biocrust‐forming mosses on the abundance of soil bacteria and fungi. Our findings provide strong evidence that the maintenance of biocrusts is crucial to buffer negative effects of climate change on multifunctionality in global drylands.
Keystone microbial taxa regulate the invasion of a fungal pathogen in agro-ecosystems
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2017
Relative importance of soil properties and microbial community for soil functionality: insights from a microbial swap experiment
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 25-05-2016
Contrasting environmental preferences of photosynthetic and non‐photosynthetic soil cyanobacteria across the globe
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 15-09-2020
DOI: 10.1111/GEB.13173
Effects of climate legacies on above- and belowground community assembly
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 30-05-2018
DOI: 10.1111/GCB.14306
Abstract: The role of climatic legacies in regulating community assembly of above- and belowground species in terrestrial ecosystems remains largely unexplored and poorly understood. Here, we report on two separate regional and continental empirical studies, including >500 locations, aiming to identify the relative importance of climatic legacies (climatic anomaly over the last 20,000 years) compared to current climates in predicting the relative abundance of ecological clusters formed by species strongly co-occurring within two independent above- and belowground networks. Climatic legacies explained a significant portion of the variation in the current community assembly of terrestrial ecosystems (up to 15.4%) that could not be accounted for by current climate, soil properties, and management. Changes in the relative abundance of ecological clusters linked to climatic legacies (e.g., past temperature) showed the potential to indirectly alter other clusters, suggesting cascading effects. Our work illustrates the role of climatic legacies in regulating ecosystem community assembly and provides further insights into possible winner and loser community assemblies under global change scenarios.
New microbial tools to boost restoration and soil organic matter
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 08-08-2023
Abstract: Anthropogenic activities are causing unprecedented rates of soil and ecosystem degradation, and the current restoration practices take decades and are prone to high rates of failure. Here we propose, the development and application of emerging microbiome tools that can potentially improve the contents and ersity of soil organic matters, enhancing the efficacy and consistency of restoration outcomes.
Competition drives the response of soil microbial diversity to increased grazing by vertebrate herbivores
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 12-06-2017
DOI: 10.1002/ECY.1879
Abstract: Scientists have largely neglected the effects of grazing on soil microbial communities despite their importance as drivers of ecosystem functions and services. We hypothesized that changes in soil properties resulting from grazing regulate the ersity of soil microbes by releasing/suppressing subordinate microbial taxa via competition. To test this, we examined how intensity of vertebrate herbivores influences the ersity and composition of soil bacteria and fungi at 216 soil s les from 54 sites across four microsites. Increasing grazing intensity reduced soil carbon, suppressing the dominant bacterial phylum Actinobacteria (indirectly promoting bacterial ersity) and increasing the dominant fungal phylum Ascomycetes (indirectly reducing fungal ersity). Our data provide novel evidence that grazing modulates the ersity and composition of soil microbes via increases or reductions in competition by dominant taxa. Our results suggest that grazing can potentially alter soil function by altering microbial community composition, providing a clear link between grazing management, carbon availability and ecosystem functions.
Mammalian engineers drive soil microbial communities and ecosystem functions across a disturbance gradient
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 18-08-2016
Abstract: The effects of mammalian ecosystem engineers on soil microbial communities and ecosystem functions in terrestrial ecosystems are poorly known. Disturbance from livestock has been widely reported to reduce soil function, but disturbance by animals that forage in the soil may partially offset these negative effects of livestock, directly and/or indirectly by shifting the composition and ersity of soil microbial communities. Understanding the role of disturbance from livestock and ecosystem engineers in driving soil microbes and functions is essential for formulating sustainable ecosystem management and conservation policies. We compared soil bacterial community composition and enzyme concentrations within four microsites: foraging pits of two vertebrates, the indigenous short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus) and the exotic European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus), and surface and subsurface soils along a gradient in grazing-induced disturbance in an arid woodland. Microbial community composition varied little across the disturbance gradient, but there were substantial differences among the four microsites. Echidna pits supported a lower relative abundance of Acidobacteria and Cyanobacteria, but a higher relative abundance of Proteobacteria than rabbit pits and surface microsites. Moreover, these microsite differences varied with disturbance. Rabbit pits had a similar profile to the subsoil or the surface soils under moderate and high, but not low disturbance. Overall, echidna foraging pits had the greatest positive effect on function, assessed as mean enzyme concentrations, but rabbits had the least. The positive effects of echidna foraging on function were indirectly driven via microbial community composition. In particular, increasing activity was positively associated with increasing relative abundance of Proteobacteria, but decreasing Acidobacteria. Our study suggests that soil disturbance by animals may offset, to some degree, the oft-reported negative effects of grazing-induced disturbance on soil function. Further, our results suggest that most of this effect will be derived from echidnas, with little positive effects due to rabbits. Activities that enhance the habitat for echidnas or reduce rabbit populations are likely to have a positive effect on soil function in these systems.
Warmer and drier ecosystems select for smaller bacterial genomes in global soils
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 03-01-2023
DOI: 10.1002/IMT2.70
Abstract: Bacterial genome size reflects bacterial evolutionary processes and metabolic lifestyles, with implications for microbial community assembly and ecosystem functions. However, to understand the extent of genome‐mediated microbial responses to environmental selections, we require studies that observe genome size distributions along environmental gradients representing different conditions that soil bacteria normally encounter. In this study, we used surface soils collected from 237 sites across the globe and analyzed how environmental conditions (e.g., soil carbon and nutrients, aridity, pH, and temperature) affect soil bacterial occurrences and genome size at the community level using bacterial community profiling. We used a joint species distribution model to quantify the effects of environments on species occurrences and found that aridity was a major regulator of genome size with warmer and drier environments selecting bacteria with smaller genomes. Drought‐induced physiological constraints on bacterial growth (e.g., water scarcity for cell metabolisms) may have led to these correlations. This finding suggests that increasing cover by warmer and drier ecosystems may result in bacterial genome simplifications by a reduction of genome size.
Optimizing cropping systems to close the gap between economic profitability and environmental health
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 16-10-2023
DOI: 10.1111/NPH.19310
Climate change impacts on plant pathogens, food security and paths forward
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 02-05-2023
Fungal richness contributes to multifunctionality in boreal forest soil
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2019
Climate and soil properties limit the positive effects of land use reversion on carbon storage in Eastern Australia
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 07-12-2015
DOI: 10.1038/SREP17866
Abstract: Australia’s “Direct Action” climate change policy relies on purchasing greenhouse gas abatement from projects undertaking approved abatement activities. Management of soil organic carbon (SOC) in agricultural soils is an approved activity, based on the expectation that land use change can deliver significant changes in SOC. However, there are concerns that climate, topography and soil texture will limit changes in SOC stocks. This work analyses data from 1482 sites surveyed across the major agricultural regions of Eastern Australia to determine the relative importance of land use vs. other drivers of SOC. Variation in land use explained only 1.4% of the total variation in SOC, with aridity and soil texture the main regulators of SOC stock under different land uses. Results suggest the greatest potential for increasing SOC stocks in Eastern Australian agricultural regions lies in converting from cropping to pasture on heavy textured soils in the humid regions.
Environmental drivers of the geographical distribution of methanotrophs: Insights from a national survey
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2018
Litter and soil biodiversity jointly drive ecosystem functions
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 14-08-2023
DOI: 10.1111/GCB.16913
Abstract: The decomposition of litter and the supply of nutrients into and from the soil are two fundamental processes through which the above‐ and belowground world interact. Microbial bio ersity, and especially that of decomposers, plays a key role in these processes by helping litter decomposition. Yet the relative contribution of litter ersity and soil bio ersity in supporting multiple ecosystem services remains virtually unknown. Here we conducted a mesocosm experiment where leaf litter and soil bio ersity were manipulated to investigate their influence on plant productivity, litter decomposition, soil respiration, and enzymatic activity in the littersphere. We showed that both leaf litter ersity and soil microbial ersity (richness and community composition) independently contributed to explain multiple ecosystem functions. Fungal saprobes community composition was especially important for supporting ecosystem multifunctionality (EMF), plant production, litter decomposition, and activity of soil phosphatase when compared with bacteria or other fungal functional groups and litter species richness. Moreover, leaf litter ersity and soil microbial ersity exerted previously undescribed and significantly interactive effects on EMF and multiple in idual ecosystem functions, such as litter decomposition and plant production. Together, our work provides experimental evidence supporting the independent and interactive roles of litter and belowground soil bio ersity to maintain ecosystem functions and multiple services.
The poly‐extreme tolerant black yeasts are prevalent under high ultraviolet light and climatic seasonality across soils of global biomes
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 24-03-2022
Abstract: Black yeasts are among the most stress‐tolerant organisms of the planet, thriving under all types of terrestrial habitats and extreme environments. Yet, their global patterns and ecology remain far less studied, limiting our capacity to identify the main environmental drivers of these important organisms across biomes. To fill this knowledge gap, we analysed topsoils from 235 terrestrial ecosystems across and within globally distributed climate groups (i.e. dry, temperate and continental). We found that soils are important repositories of black yeasts, and that ultraviolet light, fine soil texture, and precipitation seasonality are the most consistent environmental factors associated with their ersity across biomes. Finally, we identified Exophiala and Cladophialophora as the most dominant black yeasts genera in soils across the globe. These findings provide novel evidence of global distribution of black yeasts and their key environmental predictors, giving new insights for speculating the evolution and spreading of these extreme‐tolerant organisms throughout both natural and human associated extreme environments.
Crop microbiome responses to pathogen colonisation regulate the host plant defence
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 13-03-2023
Climate and soil attributes determine plant species turnover in global drylands
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 21-07-2014
DOI: 10.1111/JBI.12377
Soil biodiversity supports the delivery of multiple ecosystem functions in urban greenspaces
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 09-01-2023
UV index and climate seasonality explain fungal community turnover in global drylands
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 27-11-2022
DOI: 10.1111/GEB.13607
Abstract: Fungi are major drivers of ecosystem functioning. Increases in aridity are known to negatively impact fungal community composition in dryland ecosystems globally yet, much less is known on the potential influence of other environmental drivers, and whether these relationships are linear or nonlinear. 2017–2021. Global. Fungi. We re‐analysed multiple datasets from different dryland biogeographical regions, for a total of 912 s les and 1,483 taxa. We examined geographical patterns in community ersity and composition, and spatial, edaphic and climatic factors driving them. UV index, climate seasonality, and sand content were the most important environmental predictors of community shifts, showing the strongest association with the richness of putative plant pathogens and saprobes. Important nonlinear relationships existed with each of these fungal guilds, with increases in UV and temperature seasonality above 7.5 and 900 SD (standard deviation x 100 of the mean monthly temperature), respectively, being associated with an increased probability of plant pathogen and unspecified saprotroph occurrence. Conversely, these environmental parameters had a negative relationship with litter and soil saprotroph richness. Consequently, these ecological groups might be particularly sensitive to shifts in UV radiation and climate seasonality, which is likely to disturb current plant–soil dynamics in drylands. Our synthesis integrates fungal community data from drylands across the globe, allowing the investigation of fungal distribution and providing the first evidence of shifts in fungal ersity and composition of key fungal ecological groups along erse spatial, climatic and edaphic gradients in these widely distributed ecosystems. Our findings imply that shifts in soil structure and seasonal climatic patterns induced by global change will have disproportionate consequences for the distribution of fungal groups linked to vegetation and biogeochemical cycling in drylands, with implications for plant–soil interactions in drylands.
Global hotspots for soil nature conservation.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 12-10-2022
DOI: 10.1038/S41586-022-05292-X
Abstract: Soils are the foundation of all terrestrial ecosystems
Plant attributes explain the distribution of soil microbial communities in two contrasting regions of the globe
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 19-04-2018
DOI: 10.1111/NPH.15161
Abstract: We lack strong empirical evidence for links between plant attributes (plant community attributes and functional traits) and the distribution of soil microbial communities at large spatial scales. Using datasets from two contrasting regions and ecosystem types in Australia and England, we report that aboveground plant community attributes, such as ersity (species richness) and cover, and functional traits can predict a unique portion of the variation in the ersity (number of phylotypes) and community composition of soil bacteria and fungi that cannot be explained by soil abiotic properties and climate. We further identify the relative importance and evaluate the potential direct and indirect effects of climate, soil properties and plant attributes in regulating the ersity and community composition of soil microbial communities. Finally, we deliver a list of ex les of common taxa from Australia and England that are strongly related to specific plant traits, such as specific leaf area index, leaf nitrogen and nitrogen fixation. Together, our work provides new evidence that plant attributes, especially plant functional traits, can predict the distribution of soil microbial communities at the regional scale and across two hemispheres.
Circular linkages between soil biodiversity, fertility and plant productivity are limited to topsoil at the continental scale
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 13-06-2017
DOI: 10.1111/NPH.14634
Abstract: The current theoretical framework suggests that tripartite positive feedback relationships between soil bio ersity, fertility and plant productivity are universal. However, empirical evidence for these relationships at the continental scale and across different soil depths is lacking. We investigate the continental‐scale relationships between the ersity of microbial and invertebrate‐based soil food webs, fertility and above‐ground plant productivity at 289 sites and two soil depths, that is 0–10 and 20–30 cm, across Australia. Soil bio ersity, fertility and plant productivity are strongly positively related in surface soils. Conversely, in the deeper soil layer, the relationships between soil bio ersity, fertility and plant productivity weaken considerably, probably as a result of a reduction in bio ersity and fertility with depth. Further modeling suggested that strong positive associations among soil bio ersity–fertility and fertility–plant productivity are limited to the upper soil layer (0–10 cm), after accounting for key factors, such as distance from the equator, altitude, climate and physicochemical soil properties. These findings highlight the importance of surface soil bio ersity for soil fertility, and suggest that any loss of surface soil could potentially break the links between soil bio ersity–fertility and/or fertility–plant productivity, which can negatively impact nutrient cycling and food production, upon which future generations depend.
Species identity of biocrust-forming lichens drives the response of soil nitrogen cycle to altered precipitation frequency and nitrogen amendment
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 05-2016
Losses in microbial functional diversity reduce the rate of key soil processes
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2019
Water availability creates global thresholds in multidimensional soil biodiversity and functions
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 11-05-2023
Functional traits determine plant co-occurrence more than environment or evolutionary relatedness in global drylands
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2014
Cascading effects from plants to soil microorganisms explain how plant species richness and simulated climate change affect soil multifunctionality
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 09-10-2018
DOI: 10.1111/GCB.14440
Abstract: Despite their importance, how plant communities and soil microorganisms interact to determine the capacity of ecosystems to provide multiple functions simultaneously (multifunctionality) under climate change is poorly known. We conducted a common garden experiment using grassland species to evaluate how plant functional structure and soil microbial (bacteria and protists) ersity and abundance regulate soil multifunctionality responses to joint changes in plant species richness (one, three and six species) and simulated climate change (3°C warming and 35% rainfall reduction). The effects of species richness and climate on soil multifunctionality were indirectly driven via changes in plant functional structure and their relationships with the abundance and ersity of soil bacteria and protists. More specifically, warming selected for the larger and most productive plant species, increasing the average size within communities and leading to reductions in functional plant ersity. These changes increased the total abundance of bacteria that, in turn, increased that of protists, ultimately promoting soil multifunctionality. Our work suggests that cascading effects between plant functional traits and the abundance of multitrophic soil organisms largely regulate the response of soil multifunctionality to simulated climate change, and ultimately provides novel experimental insights into the mechanisms underlying the effects of bio ersity and climate change on ecosystem functioning.
Soil aggregation and associated microbial communities modify the impact of agricultural management on carbon content
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 22-06-2017
Abstract: Soil carbon (C) stabilisation is known to depend in part on its distribution in structural aggregates, and upon soil microbial activity within the aggregates. However, the mechanisms and relative contributions of different microbial groups to C turnover in different aggregates under various management practices remain unclear. The aim of this study was to determine the role of soil aggregation and their associated microbial communities in driving the responses of soil organic matter (SOM) to multiple management practices. Our results demonstrate that higher amounts of C inputs coupled with greater soil aggregation in residue retention management practices has positive effects on soil C content. Our results provide evidence that different aggregate size classes support distinct microbial habitats which supports the colonisation of different microbial communities. Most importantly our results indicate that the effects of management practices on soil C is modulated by soil aggregate sizes and their associated microbial community and are more pronounced in macro-aggregate compared with micro-aggregate sizes. Based on our findings we recommend that differential response of management practices and microbial control on the C turnover in macro-aggregates and micro-aggregate should be explicitly considered when accounting for management impacts on soil C turnover.
Grazing Regulates the Spatial Heterogeneity of Soil Microbial Communities Within Ecological Networks
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 30-09-2020
Local temperature increases reduce soil microbial residues and carbon stocks
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 21-08-2022
DOI: 10.1111/GCB.16347
Abstract: Warming is known to reduce soil carbon (C) stocks by promoting microbial respiration, which is associated with the decomposition of microbial residue carbon (MRC). However, the relative contribution of MRC to soil organic carbon (SOC) across temperature gradients is poorly understood. Here, we investigated the contribution of MRC to SOC along two independent elevation gradients of our model system (i.e., the Tibetan Plateau and Shennongjia Mountain in China). Our results showed that local temperature increases were negatively correlated with MRC and SOC. Further analyses revealed that rising temperature reduced SOC via decreasing MRC, which helps to explain future reductions in SOC under climate warming. Our findings demonstrate that climate warming has the potential to reduce C sequestration by increasing the decomposition of MRC, exacerbating the positive feedback between rising temperature and CO 2 efflux. Our study also considered the influence of multiple environmental factors such as soil pH and moisture, which were more important in controlling SOC than microbial traits such as microbial life‐style strategies and metabolic efficiency. Together, our work suggests an important mechanism underlying long‐term soil C sequestration, which has important implications for the microbial‐mediated C process in the face of global climate change.
The global contribution of soil mosses to ecosystem services
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 05-2023
Global homogenization of the structure and function in the soil microbiome of urban greenspaces
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.
Response to comment on “Climate legacies drive global soil carbon stocks in terrestrial ecosystem”
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 02-03-2018
Abstract: We discuss possible mechanisms to explain paleoclimate as a predictor of the current distribution of global soil C content.
Soil contamination in nearby natural areas mirrors that in urban greenspaces worldwide
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 27-03-2023
DOI: 10.1038/S41467-023-37428-6
Abstract: Soil contamination is one of the main threats to ecosystem health and sustainability. Yet little is known about the extent to which soil contaminants differ between urban greenspaces and natural ecosystems. Here we show that urban greenspaces and adjacent natural areas (i.e., natural/semi-natural ecosystems) shared similar levels of multiple soil contaminants (metal(loid)s, pesticides, microplastics, and antibiotic resistance genes) across the globe. We reveal that human influence explained many forms of soil contamination worldwide. Socio-economic factors were integral to explaining the occurrence of soil contaminants worldwide. We further show that increased levels of multiple soil contaminants were linked with changes in microbial traits including genes associated with environmental stress resistance, nutrient cycling, and pathogenesis. Taken together, our work demonstrates that human-driven soil contamination in nearby natural areas mirrors that in urban greenspaces globally, and highlights that soil contaminants have the potential to cause dire consequences for ecosystem sustainability and human wellbeing.
Humidity and low pH boost occurrence of Onygenales fungi in soil at global scale
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-2022
Management‐induced shifts in rhizosphere bacterial communities contribute to the control of pathogen causing citrus greening disease
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 07-09-2022
DOI: 10.1002/SAE2.12029
Abstract: Citrus greening (aka Huanglongbing, HLB) caused primarily by the bacterial pathogen Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus ( C Las) has devastating effects on the global citrus industry. Agricultural management‐induced changes in microbial communities are hypothesised to contribute toward HLB resistance by reducing pathogen titre and increasing root and soil health. However, we have a limited understanding of the impacts of management practices on the soil microbiome, making the extent of HLB management uncertain. Here we investigated the effect of agricultural management practices on reducing C Las titer via changes in rhizosphere‐associated bacterial communities. Rhizosphere and root s les were collected from two sites in Florida where different management practices (e.g., metalized reflective mulch ground covers, compost application and microbial inoculations) are currently being implemented to prevent HLB. Management‐induced changes in the rhizosphere bacterial community were assessed using licon sequencing. qPCR assays were used to quantify the titer of the pathogen C Las in roots. In addition, we measured soil properties and the activities of microbial enzymes involved in soil nutrient cycling. Our results indicated that certain management practices lead to shifts in the community structure of rhizosphere bacterial communities that negatively interact with the HLB pathogen. Management practices improved soil quality and reduced C Las titer. Additionally, we found that Actinobacteria were frequently enriched in the successful treatment sites, suggesting that Actinobacteria taxa could be indicators for HLB suppression properties in the soil. Our results suggest that microbiome manipulation, either through changes in the management practices or microbial amendment, can increase the suppressive potential of soils, resulting in the reduction in C Las titer and potentially leading to HLB suppression in citrus groves.
Effects of vegetation on soil cyanobacterial communities through time and space.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 15-02-2022
DOI: 10.1111/NPH.17996
Abstract: Photoautotrophic soil cyanobacteria play essential ecological roles and are known to exhibit large changes in their ersity and abundance throughout early succession. However, much less is known about how and why soil cyanobacterial communities change as soil develops over centuries and millennia, and the effects that vegetation have on such communities. We combined an extensive field survey, including 16 global soil chronosequences across contrasting ecosystems (from deserts to tropical forests), with molecular analyses to investigate how the ersity and abundance of photosynthetic and nonphotosynthetic soil cyanobacteria are affected by vegetation change during soil development, over time periods from hundreds to thousands of years. We show that, in most chronosequences, the abundance, species richness and community composition of soil cyanobacteria are relatively stable as soil develops (from centuries to millennia). Regardless of soil age, forest chronosequences were consistently dominated by nonphotosynthetic cyanobacteria (V irovibrionia), while grasslands and shrublands were dominated by photosynthetic cyanobacteria. Chronosequences undergoing drastic vegetation shifts (e.g. transitions from grasslands to forests) experienced significant changes in the composition of soil cyanobacterial communities. Our results advance our understanding of the ecology of cyanobacterial classes, and of the understudied nonphotosynthetic cyanobacteria in particular, and highlight the key role of vegetation as a major driver of their temporal dynamics as soil develops.
Effects of elevated CO2 on fine root biomass are reduced by aridity but enhanced by soil nitrogen: A global assessment
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 10-11-2017
DOI: 10.1038/S41598-017-15728-4
Abstract: Plant roots play a crucial role in regulating key ecosystem processes such as carbon (C) sequestration and nutrient solubilisation. Elevated (e)CO 2 is expected to alter the biomass of fine, coarse and total roots to meet increased demand for other resources such as water and nitrogen (N), however, the magnitude and direction of observed changes vary considerably between ecosystems. Here, we assessed how climate and soil properties mediate root responses to eCO 2 by comparing 24 field-based CO 2 experiments across the globe including a wide range of ecosystem types. We calculated response ratios (i.e. effect size) and used structural equation modelling (SEM) to achieve a system-level understanding of how aridity, mean annual temperature and total soil nitrogen simultaneously drive the response of total, coarse and fine root biomass to eCO 2 . Models indicated that increasing aridity limits the positive response of fine and total root biomass to eCO 2 , and that fine (but not coarse or total) root responses to eCO 2 are positively related to soil total N. Our results provide evidence that consideration of factors such as aridity and soil N status is crucial for predicting plant and ecosystem-scale responses to future changes in atmospheric CO 2 concentrations, and thus feedbacks to climate change.
Microsite Differentiation Drives the Abundance of Soil Ammonia Oxidizing Bacteria along Aridity Gradients
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 18-04-2016
Soil biodiversity and organic carbon are essential to reverse desertification
Publisher: Asociacion Espanola de Ecologia Terrestre (AEET)
Date: 24-12-2021
DOI: 10.7818/ECOS.2238
Abstract: La bio ersidad y el carbono orgánico del suelo, así como la interacción entre ambos, juegan papeles esenciales en el mantenimiento y regulación de los servicios ecosistémicos de las zonas secas, desde la fertilidad del suelo a la producción de alimentos. El cambio climático y los impactos antrópicos pueden provocar pérdidas en la bio ersidad y carbono del suelo, lo cual puede resultar en alteraciones de los ciclos del carbono y la funcionalidad de los ecosistemas derivando en procesos acelerados de desertificación. Es necesario, por tanto, mejorar nuestro conocimiento sobre la compleja ersidad biológica del suelo, así como su interacción con el carbono orgánico en las zonas secas. Esto nos permitirá diseñar estrategias efectivas para promover el secuestro de carbono en el suelo, contribuyendo así a revertir los procesos de degradación y desertificación. En esta revisión discutimos la importancia de la bio ersidad y el carbono orgánico del suelo de las zonas secas en un contexto de cambio global, definiendo la relación entre ambos y su respuesta a factores climáticos y degradación. También destacamos el uso de herramientas avanzadas tales como la genómica, y practicas relevantes de manejo del suelo que nos permitan incrementar los contenidos de carbono y mejorar la ersidad y funcionalidad de suelo en las zonas secas, con el fin último de prevenir y revertir la desertificación.
Response of Soil Properties and Microbial Communities to Agriculture: Implications for Primary Productivity and Soil Health Indicators
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 12-07-2016
Changes in belowground biodiversity during ecosystem development
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.
Ant colonies promote the diversity of soil microbial communities
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 03-01-2019
Contrasting effects of aridity and grazing intensity on multiple ecosystem functions and services in Australian woodlands
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 12-05-2017
DOI: 10.1002/LDR.2736
Environmental filtering controls soil biodiversity in wet tropical ecosystems
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2022
Related Organisations
Instituto De Recursos Naturales Y Agrobiología De Sevilla
Location: Spain
Related Funding Activities
Discovery Projects - Grant ID: DP190103714
Start Date: 07-2019
End Date: 06-2022
Amount: $500,000.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityDiscovery Projects - Grant ID: DP230101448
Start Date: 2023
End Date: 12-2025
Amount: $585,492.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded Activity