Biodiversity and species competition regulate the resilience of microbial biofilm community

Abstract

The relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem stability is poorly understood in microbial communities. Biofilm communities in small bioreactors called microbial electrolysis cells (MEC) contain moderate species numbers and easy tractable functional traits, thus providing an ideal platform for verifying ecological theories in microbial ecosystems. Here, we investigated the resilience of biofilm communities with a gradient of diversity, and explored the relationship between biodiversity and stability in response to a pH shock. The results showed that all bioreactors could recover to stable performance after pH disturbance, exhibiting a great resilience ability. A further analysis of microbial composition showed that the rebound of Geobacter and other exoelectrogens contributed to the resilient effectiveness, and that the presence of Methanobrevibacter might delay the functional recovery of biofilms. The microbial communities with higher diversity tended to be recovered faster, implying biofilms with high biodiversity showed better resilience in response to environmental disturbance. Network analysis revealed that the negative interactions between the two dominant genera of Geobacter and Methanobrevibacter increased when the recovery time became longer, implying the internal resource or spatial competition of key functional taxa might fundamentally impact the resilience performances of biofilm communities. This study provides new insights into our understanding of the relationship between diversity and ecosystem functioning.

Interdomain ecological networks between plants and microbes

“…The biological interactions in macroscopic ecosystems can be investigated based on direct observations, such as plant-insect interactions (Coux et al, 2016) and plant-bird interactions (Montesinos-Navarro et al, 2017). With the aid of metagenomic techniques, invisible microorganisms have been currently investigated across various environments (Feng et al, 2017;Knight et al, 2017;Thompson et al, 2017;Wei et al, 2018), and therefore, it becomes possible to explore the associations between microscopic and macroscopic species. In order to better understand the relationship between belowground microorganisms and aboveground organisms (e.g.…”

A theory of pulse dynamics and disturbance in ecology

“…Prediction 6-Species and trait diversity in ecological time (Table 2): Species and trait diversity at the landscape scale increase with biotic trait differentiation over time (Postulate 4), patch distribution in time and space (Postulate 3), energy flux (Postulate 2),and resource heterogeneity (Postulate 1). Prediction 7-Resilience (Table 2): Resilience, defined as recovery after pulse events (Hodgson et al 2015, Oliver et al 2015, Donohue et al 2016, Willis et al 2018, can be quantified by the degree of return to reference level, rate of return, and time for reaching the former or a new steady state (Hodgson et al 2015, Isbell et al 2015, Todman et al 2016, Feng et al 2017, Craven et al 2018, Ingrisch and Bahn 2018. Resilience is a function of disturbance magnitude and frequency relative to trait diversity under the assumption that the higher the biotic trait differentiation, the greater the asynchrony, redundancy, and complementarity of traits and thus the capacity for functional recovery (Oliver et al 2015).…”

Temporal dynamics of soil bacterial communities and multifunctionality are more sensitive to introduced plants than to microbial additions in a multicontaminated soil

“…including the cycling of carbon and nutrients (Kardol & Wardle, 2010 , and pH fluctuation (Feng et al, 2017). In our experiment, we found that soil microcosms were influenced by introducing the contaminant-degrading microbial consortium in the early phase, but they quickly recovered their compositional β-diversity.…”

“…Aboveground–belowground linkages have important implications for restoration ecology in that they play vital roles in driving ecosystem structure and functioning, including the cycling of carbon and nutrients (Kardol & Wardle, ). Microbial ecosystems can exhibit remarkable resistance and resilience in response to various environmental alterations, such as global climate change (Delgado‐Baquerizo et al, ; Szekely & Langenheder, ), soil contamination (Jiao, Chen, et al, ; Jiao, Liu, et al, ), and pH fluctuation (Feng et al, ). In our experiment, we found that soil microcosms were influenced by introducing the contaminant‐degrading microbial consortium in the early phase, but they quickly recovered their compositional β ‐diversity.…”