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Richards SC, King WL, Sutherland JL, Bell TH. Leveraging aquatic-terrestrial interfaces to capture putative habitat generalists. FEMS Microbiol Lett 2024; 371:fnae025. [PMID: 38553956 DOI: 10.1093/femsle/fnae025] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/20/2023] [Revised: 02/03/2024] [Accepted: 03/28/2024] [Indexed: 04/21/2024] Open
Abstract
Habitat type is a strong determinant of microbial composition. Habitat interfaces, such as the boundary between aquatic and terrestrial systems, present unique combinations of abiotic factors for microorganisms to contend with. Aside from the spillover of certain harmful microorganisms from agricultural soils into water (e.g. fecal coliform bacteria), we know little about the extent of soil-water habitat switching across microbial taxa. In this study, we developed a proof-of-concept system to facilitate the capture of putatively generalist microorganisms that can colonize and persist in both soil and river water. We aimed to examine the phylogenetic breadth of putative habitat switchers and how this varies across different source environments. Microbial composition was primarily driven by recipient environment type, with the strongest phylogenetic signal seen at the order level for river water colonizers. We also identified more microorganisms colonizing river water when soil was collected from a habitat interface (i.e. soil at the side of an intermittently flooded river, compared to soil collected further from water sources), suggesting that environmental interfaces could be important reservoirs of microbial habitat generalists. Continued development of experimental systems that actively capture microorganisms that thrive in divergent habitats could serve as a powerful tool for identifying and assessing the ecological distribution of microbial generalists.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sarah C Richards
- Department of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, United States
- Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, United States
- Intercollege Graduate Degree Program in Ecology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, United States
- International Agriculture and Development Graduate Program, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, United States
| | - William L King
- Department of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, United States
- School of Biological Sciences, University of Southampton, SO17 1BJ, United Kingdom
| | - Jeremy L Sutherland
- Department of Plant Science, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, United States
| | - Terrence H Bell
- Department of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, United States
- Intercollege Graduate Degree Program in Ecology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, United States
- International Agriculture and Development Graduate Program, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, United States
- Department of Physical & Environmental Sciences, University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, ON, M1C1A4, Canada
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King WL, Richards SC, Kaminsky LM, Bradley BA, Kaye JP, Bell TH. Leveraging microbiome rediversification for the ecological rescue of soil function. ENVIRONMENTAL MICROBIOME 2023; 18:7. [PMID: 36691096 PMCID: PMC9872425 DOI: 10.1186/s40793-023-00462-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/05/2022] [Accepted: 01/06/2023] [Indexed: 06/17/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Global biodiversity losses threaten ecosystem services and can impact important functional insurance in a changing world. Microbial diversity and function can become depleted in agricultural systems and attempts to rediversify agricultural soils rely on either targeted microbial introductions or retaining natural lands as biodiversity reservoirs. As many soil functions are provided by a combination of microbial taxa, rather than outsized impacts by single taxa, such functions may benefit more from diverse microbiome additions than additions of individual commercial strains. In this study, we measured the impact of soil microbial diversity loss and rediversification (i.e. rescue) on nitrification by quantifying ammonium and nitrate pools. We manipulated microbial assemblages in two distinct soil types, an agricultural and a forest soil, with a dilution-to-extinction approach and performed a microbiome rediversification experiment by re-introducing microorganisms lost from the dilution. A microbiome water control was included to act as a reference point. We assessed disruption and potential restoration of (1) nitrification, (2) bacterial and fungal composition through 16S rRNA gene and fungal ITS amplicon sequencing and (3) functional genes through shotgun metagenomic sequencing on a subset of samples. RESULTS Disruption of nitrification corresponded with diversity loss, but nitrification was successfully rescued in the rediversification experiment when high diversity inocula were introduced. Bacterial composition clustered into groups based on high and low diversity inocula. Metagenomic data showed that genes responsible for the conversion of nitrite to nitrate and taxa associated with nitrogen metabolism were absent in the low diversity inocula microcosms but were rescued with high diversity introductions. CONCLUSIONS In contrast to some previous work, our data suggest that soil functions can be rescued by diverse microbiome additions, but that the concentration of the microbial inoculum is important. By understanding how microbial rediversification impacts soil microbiome performance, we can further our toolkit for microbial management in human-controlled systems in order to restore depleted microbial functions.
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Affiliation(s)
- William L King
- Department of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology, The Pennsylvania State University, 317 Buckhout Lab, University Park, PA, 16802, USA
- School of Integrative Plant Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 14853, USA
| | - Sarah C Richards
- Department of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology, The Pennsylvania State University, 317 Buckhout Lab, University Park, PA, 16802, USA
- Intercollege Graduate Degree Program in Ecology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA
- Intercollege Graduate Degree Program in International Agriculture and Development, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA
| | - Laura M Kaminsky
- Department of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology, The Pennsylvania State University, 317 Buckhout Lab, University Park, PA, 16802, USA
| | - Brosi A Bradley
- Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA
| | - Jason P Kaye
- Intercollege Graduate Degree Program in Ecology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA
- Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA
| | - Terrence H Bell
- Department of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology, The Pennsylvania State University, 317 Buckhout Lab, University Park, PA, 16802, USA.
- Intercollege Graduate Degree Program in Ecology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA.
- Intercollege Graduate Degree Program in International Agriculture and Development, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA.
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