Dispersal alters soil microbial community response to drought

Evans, Sarah E.; Bell‐Dereske, Lukas; Dougherty, Kaitlyn; Kittredge, Heather A.

doi:10.1111/1462-2920.14707

Cited by 46 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 65 publications

(83 reference statements)

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“…Unlike in the macroscopic world, entire, distinct microbial communities are often displaced over space and come into contact with each other due to physical (e.g., dispersal by wind or water) and biological (e.g., animal-animal interactions or leaves falling to the ground) factors [15][16][17][18]. The process by which two or more communities that were previously separated join and reassemble into a new community has been termed community coalescence [19].…”

Section: April 20 2021 1/15mentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of competition versus cooperation in microbial community coalescence

Lechón

Clegg

Cook

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Microbial communities are ubiquitous in nature. Although processes driving the assembly of these consortia are not yet well understood, new communities frequently emerge when two or more microbial ensembles encounter each other and mix to yield a new functioning aggregation, termed "community coalescence". Despite recent advances in our understanding of coalescence, theoretical work has focused mainly on competition, and more work is necessary to determine role of other common microbial interactions, such as cooperation. In this work, we study the combined effects that competitive and cooperative interactions have in the outcome of coalescence events. We simulate communities with varying levels of each type of interaction using a consumer-resource model with cross-feeding on metabolic by-products. We then perform coalescence simulations and measure interaction levels on the pre- and post-coalescence communities using new metrics of competition and cooperation that we present previously. We find that when both interactions are present, the less competitive community tends to succeed in community coalescence, regardless of its cooperativity, suggesting that minimizing competition is the main driving force of this process. When competition is weak however, simulations show that highly cooperative communities are at a disadvantage in coalescence events, indicating that multi-species invasions tend to intercept cooperative links. Microbial community coalescence is gaining popularity in applied and basic research due to its multiple advantages. In the absence of theory that supports real life observations, here we develop a framework to understand and predict the result of community coalescence events from the perspective of biotic interactions present in the community.

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Section: April 20 2021 1/15mentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of competition versus cooperation in microbial community coalescence

Lechón

Clegg

Cook

et al. 2021

Preprint

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“…Trebouxia, the most abundant green algae detected in our rain sequences, can be considered a "generalist" due to its ability to grow in freshwater and brackish water conditions (15). If these green algae can reproduce after atmospheric transport and deposition, their colonization could impact their new environments, just as aerially dispersed bacteria and fungi can affect the microbial composition and functioning of the environments they enter (65). Previously, the primary production rate of autotrophic communities in water was reported to be negatively impacted by aeolian-transported microbes (66).…”

Section: Potential Impacts On Ecosystemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transformative Approach To Investigate the Microphysical Factors Influencing Airborne Transmission of Pathogens

Otero-Fernandez

Thomas

Oswin

et al. 2020

Appl Environ Microbiol

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Emerging outbreaks of airborne pathogenic infections worldwide, such as the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, have raised the need to understand parameters affecting the airborne survival of microbes in order to develop measures for effective infection control. We report a novel experimental strategy, TAMBAS (Tandem Approach for Microphysical and Biological Assessment of Airborne Microorganisms Survival), to explore the synergistic interactions between the physicochemical and biological processes that impact airborne microbe survival in aerosol droplets. This innovative approach provides a unique and detailed understanding of the processes taking place from aerosol droplet generation through to equilibration and viability decay in the local environment, elucidating decay mechanisms not previously described. The impact of evaporation kinetics, solute hygroscopicity and concentration, particle morphology and equilibrium particle size on airborne survival are reported, using Escherichia coli (MRE162) as a benchmark system. For this system, we report that the particle crystallisation does not directly impact microbe longevity, bacteria act as crystallization nuclei during droplet drying and equilibration, and the kinetics of size and compositional change appear to have a larger effect on microbe longevity than equilibrium solute concentration. IMPORTANCE A transformative approach to identify the physicochemical processes that impact the biological decay rates of bacteria in aerosol droplets is described. It is shown that the evaporation process and changes in the phase and morphology of the aerosol particle during evaporation impact microorganism viability. The equilibrium droplet size was found to affect airborne bacterial viability. Furthermore, the presence of Escherichia coli (MRE162) in a droplet does not affect aerosol growth/evaporation, but influences the dynamic behaviour of the aerosol through processing the culture media prior to aerosolization affecting the hygroscopicity of the culture medium; this highlights the importance of the inorganic and organic chemical composition within the aerosolised droplets that impact hygroscopicity. Bacteria act also as a crystallisation nucleus. The novel approach and data has implications for increased mechanistic understanding of aerosol survival and infectivity in bioaerosol studies spanning medical, veterinary, farming, and agricultural fields, including the role of micro-organisms in atmospheric processing and cloud formation.

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“…A promising new approach to quantify factors leading to successful invasions is to introduce whole communities rather than individual taxa ( 36 – 39 ). Introducing complex communities tests many species invasions simultaneously and recapitulates natural microbial dispersal events such as rain or wind dispersal of soil microbes to plant litter on the soil surface ( 40 ). As multispecies manipulations are often unfeasible in macroecology due to the large scale, microbial research can richly inform invasion biology, just as it has impacted evolutionary biology ( 41 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biotic Interactions Are More Important than Propagule Pressure in Microbial Community Invasions

Albright

Sevanto

Gallegos‐Graves

et al. 2020

mBio

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Microbial probiotics are intended to improve functions in diverse ecosystems, yet probiotics often fail to establish in a preexisting microbiome. This is a species invasion problem. The relative importance of the two major factors controlling establishment in this context—propagule pressure (inoculation dose and frequency) and biotic interactions (composition of introduced and resident communities)—is unknown. We tested the effect of these factors in driving microbial composition and functioning following 12 microbial community invasions (e.g., introductions of many microbial invaders) in microcosms. Ecosystem functioning over a 30-day postinvasion period was assessed by measuring activity (respiration) and environment modification (dissolved organic carbon abundance). To test the dependence on environmental context, experiments were performed in two resource environments. In both environments, biotic interactions were more important than propagule pressure in driving microbial composition and community function, but the magnitude of effect varied by environment. Successful invaders comprised approximately 8% of the total number of operational taxonomic units (OTUs). Bacteria were better invaders than fungi, with average relative abundances of 7.4% ± 6.8% and 1.5% ± 1.4% of OTUs, respectively. Common bacterial invaders were associated with stress response traits. The most resilient bacterial and fungal families, in other words, those least impacted by invasions, were linked to antimicrobial resistance or production traits. Illuminating the principles that determine community composition and functioning following microbial invasions is key to efficient community engineering. IMPORTANCE With increasing frequency, humans are introducing new microbes into preexisting microbiomes to alter functioning. Example applications include modification of microflora in human guts for better health and those of soil for food security and/or climate management. Probiotic applications are often approached as trial-and-error endeavors and have mixed outcomes. We propose that increased success in microbiome engineering may be achieved with a better understanding of microbial invasions. We conducted a microbial community invasion experiment to test the relative importance of propagule pressure and biotic interactions in driving microbial community composition and ecosystem functioning in microcosms. We found that biotic interactions were more important than propagule pressure in determining the impact of microbial invasions. Furthermore, the principles for community engineering vary among organismal groups (bacteria versus fungi).

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Dispersal alters soil microbial community response to drought

Cited by 46 publications

References 65 publications

The role of competition versus cooperation in microbial community coalescence

The role of competition versus cooperation in microbial community coalescence

Transformative Approach To Investigate the Microphysical Factors Influencing Airborne Transmission of Pathogens

Biotic Interactions Are More Important than Propagule Pressure in Microbial Community Invasions

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