Legacy Effects on the Recovery of Soil Bacterial Communities from Extreme Temperature Perturbation

Abstract

The type and frequency of disturbances experienced by soil microbiomes is expected to increase given predicted global climate change scenarios and intensified anthropogenic pressures on ecosystems. While the direct effect of multiple disturbances to soil microbes has been explored in terms of function, their effect on the recovery of microbial community composition remains unclear. Here, we used soil microcosm experiments and multiple model disturbances to explore their short-term effect on the recovery of soil microbiota after identical or novel stresses. Soil microcosms were exposed to a heat shock to create an initial effect. Upon initial community recovery (25 days after stress), they were subjected to a second stress, either a heat or a cold shock, and they were monitored for additional 25 days. To carefully verify the bacterial response to the disturbances, we monitored changes in community composition throughout the experiment using 16S rRNA gene transcript amplicon sequencing. The application of a heat shock to soils with or without the initial heat shock resulted in similar successional dynamics, but these dynamics were faster in soils with a prior heat shock. The application of a cold shock had negligible effects on previously undisturbed soils but, in combination with an initial heat shock, caused the largest shift in the community composition. Our findings show that compounded perturbation affects bacterial community recovery by altering community structure and thus, the community’s response during succession. By altering dominance patterns, disturbance legacy affects the microbiome’s ability to recover from further perturbation within the 25 days studied. Our results highlight the need to consider the soil’s disturbance history in the development of soil management practices in order to maintain the system’s resilience.

Soil microbial composition varies in response to coffee agroecosystem management

“…Correspondingly, we found a higher abundance of carbon and nitrogen in organically managed soils, and higher phosphorus in conventionally-managed soils, in accordance with other studies of coffee agroecosystems in other countries (Partelli et al 2012). Differences in soil carbon, phosphorus, and nitrogen are strong determinants of bacterial community composition The previous land use of each farm had a strong effect on the soil microbiome, consistent with experimental findings of legacy effects on the assembly of soil microbial communities (Jurburg et al 2017;Peerawat et al 2018;Turley et al 2020). Our study further shows the persistent effect of previous land uses on lands under active cultivation.…”

Patterns of community assembly in the developing chicken microbiome reveal rapid primary succession

“…were displaced within the first week after hatching by rapid-growing members of Clostridiales, whose abundance was in turn limited by the influx of diverse, specialist taxa associated with the adult broiler microbiome. Competition for resources has been previously proposed as a key component of microbial community assembly in various environments (Ho, Lüke, Reim, & Frenzel, 2016), and the temporal pattern of succession matches that observed in soils (Jurburg et al, 2017), suggesting that it may be related to the growth rates of various microbial community members. The measurement of resource availability in the GIT may aid in revealing the role of resource competition in successional dynamics in the broiler GIT.…”

Disturbance Size Can Be Compensated for by Spatial Fragmentation in Soil Microbial Ecosystems

“…Another experimental study also finds indications for cumulative effects, by assessing the recovery time of an aquatic microbial community with increasing number of disturbances (Garnier et al, 2017). Similarly, Jurburg et al (2017) observed multiplicative effects of various temperature shocks on the recovery of soil microbial communities. In our study, such collapses become more likely with increasing disturbance size (Figure 5).…”