scholarly journals The role of competition versus cooperation in microbial community coalescence

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (11) ◽  
pp. e1009584
Author(s):  
Pablo Lechón-Alonso ◽  
Tom Clegg ◽  
Jacob Cook ◽  
Thomas P. Smith ◽  
Samraat Pawar
Keyword(s):  
Microbial Community ◽  
Microbial Communities ◽  
Resource Use ◽  
Cooperative Interactions ◽  
Structural And Functional Properties ◽  
Important Challenge ◽  
New Community ◽  
By Products ◽  
Do So

New microbial communities often arise through the mixing of two or more separately assembled parent communities, a phenomenon that has been termed “community coalescence”. Understanding how the interaction structures of complex parent communities determine the outcomes of coalescence events is an important challenge. While recent work has begun to elucidate the role of competition in coalescence, that of cooperation, a key interaction type commonly seen in microbial communities, is still largely unknown. Here, using a general consumer-resource model, we study the combined effects of competitive and cooperative interactions on the outcomes of coalescence events. To do so, we simulate coalescence events between pairs of communities with different degrees of competition for shared carbon resources and cooperation through cross-feeding on leaked metabolic by-products (facilitation). We also study how structural and functional properties of post-coalescence communities evolve when they are subjected to repeated coalescence events. We find that in coalescence events, the less competitive and more cooperative parent communities contribute a higher proportion of species to the new community because this endows superior ability to deplete resources and resist invasions. Consequently, when a community is subjected to repeated coalescence events, it gradually evolves towards being less competitive and more cooperative, as well as more speciose, robust and efficient in resource use. Encounters between microbial communities are becoming increasingly frequent as a result of anthropogenic environmental change, and there is great interest in how the coalescence of microbial communities affects environmental and human health. Our study provides new insights into the mechanisms behind microbial community coalescence, and a framework to predict outcomes based on the interaction structures of parent communities.

scholarly journals Deterministic Selection Dominates Microbial Community Assembly in Termite Mounds Across a Large Spatial Area

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qing-Lin Chen ◽  
Hang-Wei Hu ◽  
Zhen-Zhen Yan ◽  
Chao-Yu Li ◽  
Bao-Anh Thi Nguyen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Microbial Community ◽  
Stochastic Processes ◽  
Microbial Communities ◽  
Fungal Community ◽  
Community Assembly ◽  
Distance Decay ◽  
Termite Mounds ◽  
Deterministic Processes ◽  
Microbial Community Assembly

Abstract Background: Termites are ubiquitous insects in tropical and subtropical habitats, where they construct massive mounds from soil, their saliva and excreta. Termite mounds harbor an enormous amount of microbial inhabitants, which regulate multiple ecosystem functions such as mitigating methane emissions and increasing ecosystem resistance to climate change. However, we lack a mechanistic understanding about the role of termite mounds in modulating the microbial community assembly processes, which are essential to unravel the biological interactions of soil fauna and microorganisms, the major components of soil food webs. We conducted a large-scale survey across a >1500 km transect in northern Australia to investigate biogeographical patterns of bacterial and fungal community in 134 termite mounds and the relative importance of deterministic versus stochastic processes in microbial community assembly. Results: Microbial alpha (number of phylotypes) and beta (changes in bacterial and fungal community composition) significantly differed between termite mounds and surrounding soils. Microbial communities in termite mounds exhibited a significant distance-decay pattern, and fungal communities had a stronger distance-decay relationship (slope = -1.91) than bacteria (slope = -0.21). Based on the neutral community model (fitness < 0.7) and normalized stochasticity ratio index (NST) with a value below the 50% boundary point, deterministic selection, rather than stochastic forces, predominated the microbial community assembly in termite mounds. Deterministic processes exhibited significantly weaker impacts on bacteria (NST = 45.23%) than on fungi (NST = 33.72%), probably due to the wider habitat niche breadth and higher potential migration rate of bacteria. The abundance of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) was negatively correlated with bacterial/fungal biomass ratios, indicating that ARG content might be an important biotic factor that drove the biogeographic pattern of microbial communities in termite mounds. Conclusions: Deterministic processes play a more important role than stochastic processes in shaping the microbial community assembly in termite mounds, an unique habitat ubiquitously distributed in tropical and subtropical ecosystems. An improved understanding of the biogeographic patterns of microorganisms in termite mounds is crucial to decipher the role of soil faunal activities in shaping microbial community assembly, with implications for their mediated ecosystems functions and services.

scholarly journals Surface Water Microbial Community Response to the Biocide 2,2-Dibromo-3-Nitrilopropionamide, Used in Unconventional Oil and Gas Extraction

2019 ◽  
Vol 85 (21) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Fernanda Campa ◽  
Stephen M. Techtmann ◽  
Mallory P. Ladd ◽  
Jun Yan ◽  
Megan Patterson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Microbial Community ◽  
Surface Water ◽  
Microbial Communities ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Community Response ◽  
Rrna Gene ◽  
Unconventional Oil ◽  
Gene Copies ◽  
Unconventional Oil And Gas ◽  
By Products

ABSTRACT Production of unconventional oil and gas continues to rise, but the effects of high-density hydraulic fracturing (HF) activity near aquatic ecosystems are not fully understood. A commonly used biocide in HF, 2,2-dibromo-3-nitrilopropionamide (DBNPA), was studied in microcosms of HF-impacted (HF+) versus HF-unimpacted (HF−) surface water streams to (i) compare the microbial community response, (ii) investigate DBNPA degradation products based on past HF exposure, and (iii) compare the microbial community response differences and similarities between the HF biocides DBNPA and glutaraldehyde. The microbial community responded to DBNPA differently in HF-impacted versus HF-unimpacted microcosms in terms of the number of 16S rRNA gene copies quantified, alpha and beta diversity, and differential abundance analyses of microbial community composition through time. The differences in microbial community changes affected degradation dynamics. HF-impacted microbial communities were more sensitive to DBNPA, causing the biocide and by-products of the degradation to persist for longer than in HF-unimpacted microcosms. A total of 17 DBNPA by-products were detected, many of them not widely known as DBNPA by-products. Many of the brominated by-products detected that are believed to be uncharacterized may pose environmental and health impacts. Similar taxa were able to tolerate glutaraldehyde and DBNPA; however, DBNPA was not as effective for microbial control, as indicated by a smaller overall decrease of 16S rRNA gene copies/ml after exposure to the biocide, and a more diverse set of taxa was able to tolerate it. These findings suggest that past HF activity in streams can affect the microbial community response to environmental perturbation such as that caused by the biocide DBNPA. IMPORTANCE Unconventional oil and gas activity can affect pH, total organic carbon, and microbial communities in surface water, altering their ability to respond to new environmental and/or anthropogenic perturbations. These findings demonstrate that 2,2-dibromo-3-nitrilopropionamide (DBNPA), a common hydraulic fracturing (HF) biocide, affects microbial communities differently as a consequence of past HF exposure, persisting longer in HF-impacted (HF+) waters. These findings also demonstrate that DBNPA has low efficacy in environmental microbial communities regardless of HF impact. These findings are of interest, as understanding microbial responses is key for formulating remediation strategies in unconventional oil and gas (UOG)-impacted environments. Moreover, some DBNPA degradation by-products are even more toxic and recalcitrant than DBNPA itself, and this work identifies novel brominated degradation by-products formed.

scholarly journals Microbial community structure in the western tropical South Pacific

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (12) ◽  
pp. 3909-3925 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Bock ◽  
France Van Wambeke ◽  
Moïra Dion ◽  
Solange Duhamel
Keyword(s):  
Community Structure ◽  
Microbial Community ◽  
Microbial Communities ◽  
Microbial Community Structure ◽  
N2 Fixation ◽  
Phytoplankton Biomass ◽  
South Pacific ◽  
Global Ocean ◽  
Bottom Up

Abstract. Oligotrophic regions play a central role in global biogeochemical cycles, with microbial communities in these areas representing an important term in global carbon budgets. While the general structure of microbial communities has been well documented in the global ocean, some remote regions such as the western tropical South Pacific (WTSP) remain fundamentally unexplored. Moreover, the biotic and abiotic factors constraining microbial abundances and distribution remain not well resolved. In this study, we quantified the spatial (vertical and horizontal) distribution of major microbial plankton groups along a transect through the WTSP during the austral summer of 2015, capturing important autotrophic and heterotrophic assemblages including cytometrically determined abundances of non-pigmented protists (also called flagellates). Using environmental parameters (e.g., nutrients and light availability) as well as statistical analyses, we estimated the role of bottom–up and top–down controls in constraining the structure of the WTSP microbial communities in biogeochemically distinct regions. At the most general level, we found a “typical tropical structure”, characterized by a shallow mixed layer, a clear deep chlorophyll maximum at all sampling sites, and a deep nitracline. Prochlorococcus was especially abundant along the transect, accounting for 68 ± 10.6 % of depth-integrated phytoplankton biomass. Despite their relatively low abundances, picophytoeukaryotes (PPE) accounted for up to 26 ± 11.6 % of depth-integrated phytoplankton biomass, while Synechococcus accounted for only 6 ± 6.9 %. Our results show that the microbial community structure of the WTSP is typical of highly stratified regions, and underline the significant contribution to total biomass by PPE populations. Strong relationships between N2 fixation rates and plankton abundances demonstrate the central role of N2 fixation in regulating ecosystem processes in the WTSP, while comparative analyses of abundance data suggest microbial community structure to be increasingly regulated by bottom–up processes under nutrient limitation, possibly in response to shifts in abundances of high nucleic acid bacteria (HNA).

scholarly journals Emergence Shapes the Structure of the Seed Microbiota

2014 ◽  
Vol 81 (4) ◽  
pp. 1257-1266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthieu Barret ◽  
Martial Briand ◽  
Sophie Bonneau ◽  
Anne Préveaux ◽  
Sophie Valière ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Microbial Community ◽  
Microbial Communities ◽  
Community Composition ◽  
Microbial Community Composition ◽  
Rrna Gene ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
Bacterial Marker ◽  
Species Specific ◽  
Diversity Studies

ABSTRACTSeeds carry complex microbial communities, which may exert beneficial or deleterious effects on plant growth and plant health. To date, the composition of microbial communities associated with seeds has been explored mainly through culture-based diversity studies and therefore remains largely unknown. In this work, we analyzed the structures of the seed microbiotas of different plants from the family Brassicaceae and their dynamics during germination and emergence through sequencing of three molecular markers: the ITS1 region of the fungal internal transcribed spacer, the V4 region of 16S rRNA gene, and a species-specific bacterial marker based on a fragment ofgyrB. Sequence analyses revealed important variations in microbial community composition between seed samples. Moreover, we found that emergence strongly influences the structure of the microbiota, with a marked reduction of bacterial and fungal diversity. This shift in the microbial community composition is mostly due to an increase in the relative abundance of some bacterial and fungal taxa possessing fast-growing abilities. Altogether, our results provide an estimation of the role of the seed as a source of inoculum for the seedling, which is crucial for practical applications in developing new strategies of inoculation for disease prevention.

scholarly journals Disturbance and recovery: a synthesis of microbial community reassembly following disturbance across realms

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Jurburg ◽  
Shane Blowes ◽  
Ashley Shade ◽  
Nico Eisenhauer ◽  
Jonathan Chase
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
Microbial Community ◽  
Microbial Communities ◽  
Community Composition ◽  
Community Assembly ◽  
Disturbance And Recovery ◽  
Microbial Community Assembly ◽  
Community Reassembly ◽  
Over Time

Disturbances alter the diversity and composition of microbial communities, but whether microbiomes from different environments exhibit similar degrees of resistance or rates of recovery has not been evaluated. Here, we synthesized 86 time series of disturbed mammalian, aquatic, and soil microbiomes to examine how the recovery of microbial richness and community composition differed after disturbance. We found no general patterns in compositional variance (i.e., dispersion) in any microbiomes over time. Only mammalian microbiomes consistently exhibited decreases in richness following disturbance. Importantly, they tended to recover this richness, but not their composition, over time. In contrast, aquatic microbiomes tended to diverge from their pre-disturbance composition following disturbance. By synthesizing microbiome responses across environments, our study aids in the reconciliation of disparate microbial community assembly frameworks, and highlights the role of the environment in microbial community reassembly following disturbance.

scholarly journals Interspecific social interactions shape public goods production in natural microbial communities

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elze Hesse ◽  
Siobhan O’Brien ◽  
Adela M. Luján ◽  
Florian Bayer ◽  
Eleanor M. van Veen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Microbial Community ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Microbial Communities ◽  
Interspecific Interactions ◽  
Similar Time ◽  
Focal Species ◽  
Ecological Selection ◽  
Social Behaviours

AbstractSome microbial public goods benefit conspecifics, as well as other species. Here, we use evolution and competition experiments to determine how exploitation of public goods by the wider microbial community shapes the production of an interspecific public good: metal-detoxifying siderophores. By simultaneously studying whole microbial communities and an embedded focal species, we show that interspecific exploitation results in both ecological selection against microbial taxa that produce relatively large amounts of siderophores, and evolution of reduced siderophore production within taxa over similar time scales. Our findings demonstrate the crucial role of interspecific interactions in shaping microbial social behaviours.One sentence summary –Interspecific exploitation shapes the evolution and ecology of public goods production

scholarly journals Dynamic Changes of Microbiome with the Utilization of Volatile Fatty Acids as Electron Donors for Denitrification

Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 1556
Author(s):  
Okkyoung Choi ◽  
Se-jin Cha ◽  
Hyunjin Kim ◽  
Hyunook Kim ◽  
Byoung-In Sang
Keyword(s):  
Fatty Acids ◽  
Microbial Community ◽  
Microbial Communities ◽  
Volatile Fatty Acids ◽  
Carbon Sources ◽  
Electron Donors ◽  
Environmental Condition ◽  
Dynamic Changes ◽  
Nitrification And Denitrification ◽  
By Products

Volatile fatty acids can be used as carbon sources for denitrification and are easily supplied as by-products from the anaerobic digestion of waste materials. Nitrification and denitrification processes were carried out in a single reactor feeding volatile fatty acids as electron donors and the changes in microbial communities in the reactor were investigated. The microbial communities in the alternating aerobic and anoxic systems were different, and their structure flexibly changed within one reactor. Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes were highly distributed during denitrification, whereas Proteobacteria was a major phylum during nitrification. In addition, in the denitrification system, the microbial community was substrate dependent. It showed the sequential nitrogen removal in one reactor and the microbial community also followed the change of environmental condition, cyclic nitrification, and denitrification.

scholarly journals Host genotype explains rhizospheric microbial community composition: the case of wild cotton metapopulations (Gossypium hirsutum L.) in Mexico

2020 ◽  
Vol 96 (8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alejandra Hernández-Terán ◽  
Marcelo Navarro-Díaz ◽  
Mariana Benítez ◽  
Rafael Lira ◽  
Ana Wegier ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Variation ◽  
Microbial Community ◽  
Microbial Communities ◽  
Microbial Community Composition ◽  
Community Diversity ◽  
Rrna Gene ◽  
Host Genotype ◽  
Plant Host ◽  
Wild Cotton

ABSTRACT The rhizosphere provides several benefits to the plant host being a strong determinant for its health, growth and productivity. Nonetheless, the factors behind the assembly of the microbial communities associated with the rhizosphere such as the role of plant genotypes are not completely understood. In this study, we tested the role that intraspecific genetic variation has in rhizospheric microbial community assemblages, using genetically distinct wild cotton populations as a model of study. We followed a common garden experiment including five wild cotton populations, controlling for plant genotypes, environmental conditions and soil microbial community inoculum, to test for microbial differences associated with genetic variation of the plant hosts. Microbial communities of the treatments were characterized by culture-independent 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing with Illumina MiSeq platform. We analyzed microbial community diversity (alpha and beta), and diversity structure of such communities, determined by co-occurrence networks. Results show that different plant genotypes select for different and specific microbial communities from a common inoculum. Although we found common amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) to all plant populations (235), we also found unique ASVs for different populations that could be related to potential functional role of such ASVs in the rhizosphere.

scholarly journals Microbiome of Grand Canyon Caverns, a dry sulfuric karst cave in Arizona, supports diverse extremo-philic bacterial and archaeal communities

2021 ◽  
Vol 83 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-56
Author(s):  
Raymond Keeler ◽  
Bradley Lusk
Keyword(s):  
Microbial Community ◽  
Microbial Communities ◽  
Grand Canyon ◽  
Rrna Gene ◽  
Karst Cave ◽  
Operational Taxonomic Units ◽  
Karst Caves ◽  
Bacterial And Archaeal Communities ◽  
Karst Systems

We analyzed the microbial community of multicolored speleosol deposits found in Grand Canyon Caverns, a dry sulfuric karst cave in northwest Arizona, USA. Underground cave and karst systems harbor a great range of microbial diversity; however, the inhabitants of dry sulfuric karst caves, including extremophiles, remain poorly understood. Understanding the microbial communities inhabiting cave and karst systems is essential to provide information on the multidirectional feedback between biology and geology, to elucidate the role of microbial biogeochemical processes on cave formation, and potentially aid in the development of biotechnology and pharmaceuticals. Based on the V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene, the microbial community was determined to consist of 2207 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) using species-level annotations, representing 55 phyla. The five most abundant Bacteria were Actinobacteria 51.3 ± 35.4 %, Proteobacteria 12.6 ± 9.5 %, Firmicutes 9.8 ± 7.3 %, Bacteroidetes 8.3 ± 5.9 %, and Cyanobacteria 7.1 ± 7.3 %. The relative abundance of Archaea represented 1.1 ± 0.9 % of all samples and 0.2 ± 0.04 % of samples were unassigned. Elemental analysis found that the composition of the rock varied by sample and that calcium (6200 ± 3494 ppm), iron (1141 ± 1066 ppm), magnesium (25 ± 17 ppm), and phosphorous (37 ± 33 ppm) were the most prevalent elements detected across all samples. Furthermore, carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen were found to compose 4.7 ± 4.9 %, 0.3 ± 0.4 %, and 0.1 ± 0.1 % of samples, respectively. Finally, Raman spectra compared to the RRUFF Project database using CrystalSleuth found that the mineral composition of the speleosol consisted of calcite, hematite, paraspurrite, quartz, and trattnerite. These data suggest that dry sulfuric karst caves can harbor robust microbial communities under oligotrophic, endolithic, and troglophilic conditions.

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