Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences
Divergent responses between lineages of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi to soil phosphorus and nitrogen availability
Published: 2023-12-13
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Soil Science
Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) associations are multifunctional. Two important functions they perform are facilitating nutrient uptake in host plants and protecting plants from biotic stress, among other functions. AM fungal taxa vary in how capably they perform these functions and can also respond differently to environmental selection. Therefore, there is a need to better understand how particular [...]
Elevated CO2 enhances decomposition and modifies litter-associated fungal assemblages in a natural Eucalyptus woodland
Published: 2023-12-13
Subjects: Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Litter decomposition is a key process governing carbon and nutrient cycles in forest ecosystems that is expected to be impacted by increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations. We conducted two complementary field studies to assess the effects of elevated CO2 on Eucalyptus tereticornis litter decomposition processes. First, we used bags of two different mesh sizes to assess the [...]
Signatures of global processes shaping the structure of microbial co-occurrence networks
Published: 2023-11-01
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences
Co-occurrence networks offer insights into the complexity of microbial interactions, particularly in highly diverse environments where direct observation is challenging. However, identifying the scale at which local and non-local processes structure co-occurrence networks remains challenging because it requires simultaneously analyzing network structure within and between local networks. In this [...]
When the microbiome shapes the host: immune evolution implications for infectious disease
Published: 2023-10-24
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Evolution, Immunity, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Immunology of Infectious Disease, Life Sciences, Molecular Genetics, Pathogenic Microbiology
The microbiome includes both “mutualist” and “pathogen” microbes, regulated by the same innate immune architecture. A major question has therefore been: how do hosts prevent pathogenic infections while maintaining beneficial microbes? One idea suggests hosts can selectively activate innate immunity upon pathogenic infection, but not mutualist colonisation. Another idea posits that hosts can [...]
Withdrawn: Datathons: fostering equitability in data reuse in ecology
Published: 2023-10-06
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Genetics, Genetics and Genomics, Genomics, Life Sciences, Microbiology
Duplicate of https://doi.org/10.32942/X2389Q
Microbial invasions and inoculants: a call to action
Published: 2023-07-18
Subjects: Biosecurity, Biotechnology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences
The use of non-genetically modified microbial inoculants for beneficial purposes in agriculture, bioremediation, medicine, and infrastructure is increasing. The intentional introduction of plants and animals for similar purposes has a long history, but despite successes, has resulted in thousands of plant and animal species becoming invasive, with catastrophic consequences for the environment, [...]
Allelopathy-selected microbiomes mitigate chemical inhibition of plant performance
Published: 2023-03-19
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Other Plant Sciences, Plant Biology
Allelopathy is a common and important stressor that shapes plant communities and can alter soil microbiomes, yet little is known about the direct effects of allelochemical addition on bacterial and fungal communities or the potential for allelochemical-selected microbiomes to mediate plant performance responses, especially in habitats naturally structured by allelopathy. Here we present the first [...]
Fragmentation disrupts microbial effects on native plant community productivity
Published: 2023-03-18
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences
1. Anthropogenic habitat fragmentation – the breaking up of natural landscapes – is a pervasive threat to biodiversity and ecosystem function worldwide. Fragmentation results in a mosaic of remnant native habitat patches embedded in human-modified habitat known as the “matrix”. By introducing novel environmental conditions in matrix habitats and reducing connectivity of native habitats, [...]
A diversity of fungal pathways contribute to improved soil carbon stability and storage
Published: 2023-03-03
Subjects: Agricultural Science, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
While various fungi could facilitate soil C storage and climate change mitigation via carbon (C) cycling, standard soil C tests that measure only bulk soil C cannot disentangle mechanisms underpinning fungal influences and so far research has largely focused on mycorrhizal fungi. Here, we assessed the soil C storage potential of 12 non-mycorrhizal fungi, selected from a wide pool based on traits [...]
How do microbes grow in nature? The role of population dynamics in microbial ecology and evolution
Published: 2023-02-25
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Evolution, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Systems Biology
The growth of microbial populations in nature is dynamic, as the cellular physiology and environment of these populations change. Population dynamics have wide-ranging consequences for ecology and evolution, determining how species interact and which mutations fix. Understanding these dynamics is also critical for clinical and environmental applications in which we need to promote or inhibit [...]
Environmental insults and compensative responses: when microbiome meets cancer
Published: 2023-02-11
Subjects: Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Organismal Biological Physiology, Other Microbiology, Pathogenic Microbiology
Tumor microenvironment has recently been ascribed a new hallmark – the polymorphic microbiome. Accumulating evidence regarding the tissue specific territories of tumor-microbiome have opened new and interesting avenues. A pertinent question is regarding the functional consequence of the meeting of the host-microbiome with cancer. Given microbial communities have predominantly been explored [...]
Implications of microbial community assembly for ecosystem restoration: patterns, process, and potential
Published: 2022-11-23
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences
While it is now widely accepted that microorganisms provide essential functions in restoration ecology, the nature of relationships between microbial community assembly and ecosystem recovery remain unclear. There has been a longstanding challenge to decipher whether microorganisms facilitate or simply follow ecosystem recovery, and evidence for each is mixed at best. We propose that [...]
The Global Forest Health Crisis: A Public Good Social Dilemma in Need of International Collective Action
Published: 2022-03-10
Subjects: Agricultural and Resource Economics, Agricultural Economics, Agricultural Science, Agriculture, Behavioral Economics, Biodiversity, Biology, Biosecurity, Botany, Economics, Entomology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Environmental Studies, Forest Biology, Forest Management, Forest Sciences, International Relations, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Other Forestry and Forest Sciences, Other Plant Sciences, Pathogenic Microbiology, Plant Biology, Plant Pathology, Plant Sciences, Political Science, Science and Technology Studies, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Society is confronted by interconnected threats to ecological sustainability. Among these is the devastation of forests by destructive non-native pathogens and insects introduced through global trade, leading to the loss of critical ecosystem services and a global forest health crisis. We argue that the forest health crisis is a public good social dilemma and propose a response framework that [...]
New insight into colonies of Microcystis (Cyanobacteria) as multi-specific floating biofilms
Published: 2022-01-29
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Microbiology
The ability to form biofilms is a functional trait shared by many bacterial species. Biofilms provide bacteria a sheltered environment where the nutrients and oxygen gradients create a heterogeneous matrix and promote cells to differentiate their metabolism and functions according to the position they occupy inside the matrix. Species of the Microcystis genus are among the most common [...]
Microbiotic particles in water and soil, water-soil microbiota coalescences, and antimicrobial resistance
Published: 2021-11-30
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Microbiology
Bacterial organisms like surfaces. Water and soil contain a multiplicity of particulated material where bacterial populations and communities might attach. Microbiotic particles refers to any type of small particles (less than 2 mm) where bacteria (and other microbes) might attach, resulting in medium- long-term colonization. In this work, the interactions of bacterial organisms with microbiotic [...]