scholarly journals Microbial community response to a decade of simulated global changes depends on the plant community

Elem Sci Anth ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarai S. Finks ◽  
Claudia Weihe ◽  
Sarah Kimball ◽  
Steven D. Allison ◽  
Adam C. Martiny ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Global Change ◽  
Community Composition ◽  
Plant Community ◽  
Plant Communities ◽  
Bacterial Community Composition ◽  
Community Response ◽  
Plant Litter ◽  
Global Changes ◽  
Dependent Manner ◽  
Microbial Composition

Global changes such as increased drought and atmospheric nitrogen deposition perturb both the microbial and plant communities that mediate terrestrial ecosystem functioning. However, few studies consider how microbial responses to global changes may be influenced by interactions with plant communities. To begin to address the role of microbial–plant interactions, we tested the hypothesis that the response of microbial communities to global change depends on the plant community. We characterized bacterial and fungal communities from 395 plant litter samples taken from the Loma Ridge Global Change Experiment, a decade-long global change experiment in Southern California that manipulates rainfall and nitrogen levels across two adjacent ecosystems, a grassland and a coastal sage scrubland. The differences in bacterial and fungal composition between ecosystems paralleled distinctions in plant community composition. In addition to the direct main effects, the global change treatments altered microbial composition in an ecosystem-dependent manner, in support of our hypothesis. The interaction between the drought treatment and ecosystem explained nearly 5% of the variation in bacterial community composition, similar to the variation explained by the ecosystem-independent effects of drought. Unexpectedly, we found that the main effect of drought was approximately four times as strong on bacterial composition as that of nitrogen addition, which did not alter fungal or plant composition. Overall, the findings underscore the importance of considering plant–microbe interactions when considering the transferability of the results of global change experiments across ecosystems.

scholarly journals Global change effects on plant communities are magnified by time and the number of global change factors imposed

2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (36) ◽  
pp. 17867-17873 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberly J. Komatsu ◽  
Meghan L. Avolio ◽  
Nathan P. Lemoine ◽  
Forest Isbell ◽  
Emily Grman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Community Structure ◽  
Global Change ◽  
Community Composition ◽  
Plant Community ◽  
Plant Communities ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Global Changes ◽  
Herbaceous Plant ◽  
Community Responses ◽  
Similar Frequency

Global change drivers (GCDs) are expected to alter community structure and consequently, the services that ecosystems provide. Yet, few experimental investigations have examined effects of GCDs on plant community structure across multiple ecosystem types, and those that do exist present conflicting patterns. In an unprecedented global synthesis of over 100 experiments that manipulated factors linked to GCDs, we show that herbaceous plant community responses depend on experimental manipulation length and number of factors manipulated. We found that plant communities are fairly resistant to experimentally manipulated GCDs in the short term (<10 y). In contrast, long-term (≥10 y) experiments show increasing community divergence of treatments from control conditions. Surprisingly, these community responses occurred with similar frequency across the GCD types manipulated in our database. However, community responses were more common when 3 or more GCDs were simultaneously manipulated, suggesting the emergence of additive or synergistic effects of multiple drivers, particularly over long time periods. In half of the cases, GCD manipulations caused a difference in community composition without a corresponding species richness difference, indicating that species reordering or replacement is an important mechanism of community responses to GCDs and should be given greater consideration when examining consequences of GCDs for the biodiversity–ecosystem function relationship. Human activities are currently driving unparalleled global changes worldwide. Our analyses provide the most comprehensive evidence to date that these human activities may have widespread impacts on plant community composition globally, which will increase in frequency over time and be greater in areas where communities face multiple GCDs simultaneously.

Temporal dynamics of mycorrhizal fungal communities and co-associations with grassland plant communities following experimental manipulation of rainfall

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Coline Deveautour ◽  
Sally Power ◽  
Kirk Barnett ◽  
Raul Ochoa-Hueso ◽  
Suzanne Donn ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Community Composition ◽  
Plant Community ◽  
Plant Communities ◽  
Fungal Community ◽  
Mycorrhizal Fungi ◽  
Temporal Dynamics ◽  
Arbuscular Mycorrhizal ◽  
Fungal Communities ◽  
Plant Responses ◽  
Rainfall Regimes

Climate models project overall a reduction in rainfall amounts and shifts in the timing of rainfall events in mid-latitudes and sub-tropical dry regions, which threatens the productivity and diversity of grasslands. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi may help plants to cope with expected changes but may also be impacted by changing rainfall, either via the direct effects of low soil moisture on survival and function or indirectly via changes in the plant community. In an Australian mesic grassland (former pasture) system, we characterised plant and arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal communities every six months for nearly four years to two altered rainfall regimes: i) ambient, ii) rainfall reduced by 50% relative to ambient over the entire year and iii) total summer rainfall exclusion. Using Illumina sequencing, we assessed the response of AM fungal communities sampled from contrasting rainfall treatments and evaluated whether variation in AM fungal communities was associated with variation in plant community richness and composition. We found that rainfall reduction influenced the fungal communities, with the nature of the response depending on the type of manipulation, but that consistent results were only observed after more than two years of rainfall manipulation. We observed significant co-associations between plant and AM fungal communities on multiple dates. Predictive co-correspondence analyses indicated more support for the hypothesis that fungal community composition influenced plant community composition than vice versa. However, we found no evidence that altered rainfall regimes were leading to distinct co-associations between plants and AM fungi. Overall, our results provide evidence that grassland plant communities are intricately tied to variation in AM fungal communities. However, in this system, plant responses to climate change may not be directly related to impacts of altered rainfall regimes on AM fungal communities. Our study shows that AM fungal communities respond to changes in rainfall but that this effect was not immediate. The AM fungal community may influence the composition of the plant community. However, our results suggest that plant responses to altered rainfall regimes at our site may not be resulting via changes in the AM fungal communities.

scholarly journals Plant communities as drivers of soil respiration: pathways, mechanisms, and significance for global change

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. 2047-2061 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. B. Metcalfe ◽  
R. A. Fisher ◽  
D. A. Wardle
Keyword(s):  
Plant Community ◽  
Plant Communities ◽  
Plant Traits ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽  
Climate Impacts ◽  
Individual Species ◽  
Global Changes ◽  
Individual Plant ◽  
Vegetation Types ◽  
Species Invasions

Abstract. Understanding the impacts of plant community characteristics on soil carbon dioxide efflux (R) is a key prerequisite for accurate prediction of the future carbon (C) balance of terrestrial ecosystems under climate change. However, developing a mechanistic understanding of the determinants of R is complicated by the presence of multiple different sources of respiratory C within soil – such as soil microbes, plant roots and their mycorrhizal symbionts – each with their distinct dynamics and drivers. In this review, we synthesize relevant information from a wide spectrum of sources to evaluate the current state of knowledge about plant community effects on R, examine how this information is incorporated into global climate models, and highlight priorities for future research. Despite often large variation amongst studies and methods, several general trends emerge. Mechanisms whereby plants affect R may be grouped into effects on belowground C allocation, aboveground litter properties and microclimate. Within vegetation types, the amount of C diverted belowground, and hence R, may be controlled mainly by the rate of photosynthetic C uptake, while amongst vegetation types this should be more dependent upon the specific C allocation strategies of the plant life form. We make the case that plant community composition, rather than diversity, is usually the dominant control on R in natural systems. Individual species impacts on R may be largest where the species accounts for most of the biomass in the ecosystem, has very distinct traits to the rest of the community and/or modulates the occurrence of major natural disturbances. We show that climate vegetation models incorporate a number of pathways whereby plants can affect R, but that simplifications regarding allocation schemes and drivers of litter decomposition may limit model accuracy. We also suggest that under a warmer future climate, many plant communities may shift towards dominance by fast growing plants which produce large quantities of nutrient rich litter. Where this community shift occurs, it could drive an increase in R beyond that expected from direct climate impacts on soil microbial activity alone. We identify key gaps in knowledge and recommend them as priorities for future work. These include the patterns of photosynthate partitioning amongst belowground components, ecosystem level effects of individual plant traits, and the importance of trophic interactions and species invasions or extinctions for ecosystem processes. A final, overarching challenge is how to link these observations and drivers across spatio-temporal scales to predict regional or global changes in R over long time periods. A more unified approach to understanding R, which integrates information about plant traits and community dynamics, will be essential for better understanding, simulating and predicting patterns of R across terrestrial ecosystems and its role within the earth-climate system.

scholarly journals Can functional traits predict plant community response to global change?

Ecosphere ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Kimball ◽  
Jennifer L. Funk ◽  
Marko J. Spasojevic ◽  
Katharine N. Suding ◽  
Scot Parker ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Global Change ◽  
Plant Community ◽  
Functional Traits ◽  
Community Response

scholarly journals Response of Microbial Communities on Culturing Plates of Post-settlement Sea Cucumbers to Seawater Acidification and Warming

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongxia Zhang ◽  
Mingshan Song ◽  
Lili Wang ◽  
Anguo Zhang ◽  
Xiaolong Yang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Microbial Community ◽  
Microbial Communities ◽  
Community Composition ◽  
Apostichopus Japonicus ◽  
Bacterial Community Composition ◽  
Early Period ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Microbial Composition ◽  
Seawater Acidification ◽  
Corrugated Plates

Seawater acidification and warming have been found to affect the early life of many marine organisms, but their effects on the microbial community in the environment related to the early development stage of aquaculture species have been rarely investigated. To understand how seawater acidification and warming impact the microbial community in aquaculture systems, we designed four microcosms to monitor and characterize the microbial composition on the corrugated plates in the Apostichopus japonicus culture tanks during its post-settlement stage. High-throughput 16S rRNA sequencing revealed that the bacterial community composition varied significantly in different periods of incubation. The bacterial diversity and community composition were obviously changed by seawater acidification and warming in the early period and then tended to revert to the level of the control group. Acidification significantly increased the relative abundance of dominant families Rhodobacteraceae and Flavobacteriaceae in the early period, suggesting that microbiota could increase the abundance of predominant taxa to adapt to increased CO2 concentration and reconstruct a stable community structure. No interaction effect of both factors was observed in the combined group. Results reveal that the microbial communities on the corrugated plates in A. japonicus culture tank were affected in the early period of incubation, and could then acclimatize to the increased CO2 and temperature. This study provides new insights into the variation and adaptation responses of the microbiota in aquaculture systems to seawater acidification and warming.

scholarly journals Resource availability is much more important than resource heterogeneity in determining the species diversity and abundance of karst plant communities

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuan LIU ◽  
Wenchao Qi ◽  
Danni He ◽  
Yunrong Xiang ◽  
Jin Chun Liu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Species Diversity ◽  
Community Composition ◽  
Plant Community ◽  
Plant Communities ◽  
Resource Availability ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Variation Partitioning ◽  
Equation Model ◽  
Plant Community Composition ◽  
Resource Heterogeneity

Resource availability and heterogeneity are recognized as two essential environmental aspects to determine species diversity and community abundance. However, how resource availability and heterogeneity determine species diversity and community abundance in highly heterogeneous and most fragile karst landscapes is largely unknown. We examined the effects of resource availability and heterogeneity on plant community composition and quantified their relative contribution by variation partitioning. Then, a structural equation model (SEM) was used to further disentangle the multiple direct and indirect effects of resource availability on plant community composition. Species diversity was significantly influenced by the resource availability in shrubland and woodland but not by the heterogeneity in woodland. Abundance was significantly affected by both resource availability and heterogeneity, whereas variation partitioning results showed that resource availability explained the majority of the variance in abundance, and the contribution of resource heterogeneity was marginal. These results indicated that resource availability plays a more important role in determining karst plant community composition than resource heterogeneity. Our SEMs further found that the multiple direct and indirect processes of resource availability in determining karst species diversity and abundance were different in different vegetation types. Resource availability and heterogeneity both played a certain role in determining karst plant community composition, while the importance of resource availability far exceeded resource heterogeneity. We propose that steering community restoration and reconstruction should be highly dependent on resource availability, and multiple direct and indirect pathways of resource availability for structuring karst plant communities need to be taken into account.

scholarly journals Short-term climate-induced change in French plant communities

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (7) ◽  
pp. 20190280 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabrielle Martin ◽  
Vincent Devictor ◽  
Eric Motard ◽  
Nathalie Machon ◽  
Emmanuelle Porcher
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Community Composition ◽  
Plant Community ◽  
Plant Communities ◽  
Thermal Preference ◽  
Plant Community Composition ◽  
Large Area ◽  
High Dispersal ◽  
Short Period ◽  
The Impact

Latitudinal and altitudinal range shifts in response to climate change have been reported for numerous animal species, especially those with high dispersal capacities. In plants, the impact of climate change on species distribution or community composition has been documented mainly over long periods (decades) and in specific habitats, often forests. Here, we broaden the results of such long-term, focused studies by examining climate-driven changes in plant community composition over a large area (France) encompassing multiple habitat types and over a short period (2009–2017). To this end, we measured mean community thermal preference, calculated as the community-weighted mean of the Ellenberg temperature indicator value, using data from a standardized participatory monitoring scheme. We report a rapid increase in the mean thermal preference of plant communities at national and regional scales, which we relate to climate change. This reshuffling of plant community composition corresponds to a relative increase in the abundance of warm- versus cold-adapted species. However, support for this trend was weaker when considering only the common species, including common annuals. Our results thus suggest for the first time that the response of plant communities to climate change involves subtle changes affecting all species rare and common, which can nonetheless be detected over short time periods. Whether such changes are sufficient to cope with the current climate warming remains to be ascertained.

scholarly journals The Role of Host Phylogeny Varies in Shaping Microbial Diversity in the Hindguts of Lower Termites

2014 ◽  
Vol 81 (3) ◽  
pp. 1059-1070 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vera Tai ◽  
Erick R. James ◽  
Christine A. Nalepa ◽  
Rudolf H. Scheffrahn ◽  
Steve J. Perlman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Community Composition ◽  
Bacterial Community Composition ◽  
Small Subunit ◽  
Rrna Gene ◽  
Small Subunit Rrna ◽  
Microbial Composition ◽  
Variable Regions ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Symbiotic Associations ◽  
Host Phylogeny

ABSTRACTThe hindguts of lower termites andCryptocercuscockroaches are home to a distinct community of archaea, bacteria, and protists (primarily parabasalids and some oxymonads). Within a host species, the composition of these hindgut communities appears relatively stable, but the evolutionary and ecological factors structuring community composition and stability are poorly understood, as are differential impacts of these factors on protists, bacteria, and archaea. We analyzed the microbial composition of parabasalids and bacteria in the hindguts ofCryptocercus punctulatusand 23 species spanning 4 families of lower termites by pyrosequencing variable regions of the small-subunit rRNA gene. Especially for the parabasalids, these data revealed undiscovered taxa and provided a phylogenetic basis for a more accurate understanding of diversity, diversification, and community composition. The composition of the parabasalid communities was found to be strongly structured by the phylogeny of their hosts, indicating the importance of historical effects, although exceptions were also identified. Particularly, spirotrichonymphids and trichonymphids likely were transferred between host lineages. In contrast, host phylogeny was not sufficient to explain the majority of bacterial community composition, but the compositions of theBacteroidetes,Elusimicrobia,Tenericutes,Spirochaetes, andSynergisteswere structured by host phylogeny perhaps due to their symbiotic associations with protists. All together, historical effects probably resulting from vertical inheritance have had a prominent role in structuring the hindgut communities, especially of the parabasalids, but dispersal and environmental acquisition have played a larger role in community composition than previously expected.

scholarly journals Perennials but not slope aspect affect the diversity of soil bacterial communities in the northern Negev Desert, Israel

Soil Research ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahuva Vonshak ◽  
Menachem Y. Sklarz ◽  
Ann M. Hirsch ◽  
Osnat Gillor
Keyword(s):  
Bacterial Community ◽  
Bacterial Diversity ◽  
Community Composition ◽  
Bacterial Communities ◽  
Bacterial Community Composition ◽  
Plant Litter ◽  
Negev Desert ◽  
Slope Aspect ◽  
Desert Shrubs ◽  
Soil Bacterial

Underneath the canopy of perennials in arid regions, moderate soil temperature and evaporation, as well as plant litter create islands of higher fertility in the low-productivity landscape, known as ‘resource islands’. The sparse distribution of these resource islands is mirrored by soil microbial communities, which mediate a large number of biogeochemical transformations underneath the plants. We explored the link between the bacterial community composition and two prevalent desert shrubs, Zygophyllum dumosum and Artemisia herba-alba, on northern- and southern-facing slopes in the northern highlands of the Negev Desert (Israel), at the end of a drought winter mild rainy season. We sequenced the bacterial community and analysed the physicochemical properties of the soil under the shrub canopies and from barren soil in replicate slopes. The soil bacterial diversity was independent of slope aspect, but differed according to shrub presence or type. Links between soil bacterial community composition and their associated desert shrubs were found, enabling us to link bacterial diversity with shrub type or barren soils. Our results suggest that plants and their associated bacterial communities are connected to survival and persistence under the harsh desert conditions.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document