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      Microbial diversity drives multifunctionality in terrestrial ecosystems

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          Abstract

          Despite the importance of microbial communities for ecosystem services and human welfare, the relationship between microbial diversity and multiple ecosystem functions and services (that is, multifunctionality) at the global scale has yet to be evaluated. Here we use two independent, large-scale databases with contrasting geographic coverage (from 78 global drylands and from 179 locations across Scotland, respectively), and report that soil microbial diversity positively relates to multifunctionality in terrestrial ecosystems. The direct positive effects of microbial diversity were maintained even when accounting simultaneously for multiple multifunctionality drivers (climate, soil abiotic factors and spatial predictors). Our findings provide empirical evidence that any loss in microbial diversity will likely reduce multifunctionality, negatively impacting the provision of services such as climate regulation, soil fertility and food and fibre production by terrestrial ecosystems.

          Abstract

          The role of microbial diversity in ecosystems is less well understood than, for example, that of plant diversity. Analysing two independent data sets at a global and regional scale, Delgado-Baquerizo et al. show positive effects of soil diversity on multiple terrestrial ecosystem functions.

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          Most cited references35

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          FLASH: fast length adjustment of short reads to improve genome assemblies.

          Next-generation sequencing technologies generate very large numbers of short reads. Even with very deep genome coverage, short read lengths cause problems in de novo assemblies. The use of paired-end libraries with a fragment size shorter than twice the read length provides an opportunity to generate much longer reads by overlapping and merging read pairs before assembling a genome. We present FLASH, a fast computational tool to extend the length of short reads by overlapping paired-end reads from fragment libraries that are sufficiently short. We tested the correctness of the tool on one million simulated read pairs, and we then applied it as a pre-processor for genome assemblies of Illumina reads from the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus and human chromosome 14. FLASH correctly extended and merged reads >99% of the time on simulated reads with an error rate of <1%. With adequately set parameters, FLASH correctly merged reads over 90% of the time even when the reads contained up to 5% errors. When FLASH was used to extend reads prior to assembly, the resulting assemblies had substantially greater N50 lengths for both contigs and scaffolds. The FLASH system is implemented in C and is freely available as open-source code at http://www.cbcb.umd.edu/software/flash. t.magoc@gmail.com.
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            Soil biodiversity and soil community composition determine ecosystem multifunctionality.

            Biodiversity loss has become a global concern as evidence accumulates that it will negatively affect ecosystem services on which society depends. So far, most studies have focused on the ecological consequences of above-ground biodiversity loss; yet a large part of Earth's biodiversity is literally hidden below ground. Whether reductions of biodiversity in soil communities below ground have consequences for the overall performance of an ecosystem remains unresolved. It is important to investigate this in view of recent observations that soil biodiversity is declining and that soil communities are changing upon land use intensification. We established soil communities differing in composition and diversity and tested their impact on eight ecosystem functions in model grassland communities. We show that soil biodiversity loss and simplification of soil community composition impair multiple ecosystem functions, including plant diversity, decomposition, nutrient retention, and nutrient cycling. The average response of all measured ecosystem functions (ecosystem multifunctionality) exhibited a strong positive linear relationship to indicators of soil biodiversity, suggesting that soil community composition is a key factor in regulating ecosystem functioning. Our results indicate that changes in soil communities and the loss of soil biodiversity threaten ecosystem multifunctionality and sustainability.
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              Structural Equation Modeling and Natural Systems

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                Author and article information

                Journal
                Nat Commun
                Nat Commun
                Nature Communications
                Nature Publishing Group
                2041-1723
                28 January 2016
                2016
                : 7
                : 10541
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University , Penrith, New South Wales 2751, Australia
                [2 ]Área de Biodiversidad y Conservación, Departamento de Biología y Geología, Física y Química Inorgánica, Escuela Superior de Ciencias Experimentales y Tecnología, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Calle Tulipán Sin Número , Móstoles 28933, Spain
                [3 ]Department of Forest Resources, University of Minnesota , St Paul, Minnesota 55108, USA
                [4 ]Instituto de Suelos, CIRN, INTA, Nicolas Repetto y de los Reseros Sin Número , Hurlingham, Buenos Aires 1686, Argentina
                [5 ]The James Hutton Institute , Craigiebuckler, Aberdeen AB15 8QH, UK
                [6 ]Global Centre for Land-Based Innovation, Western Sydney University , Penrith South DC, New South Wales 2751, Australia
                Author notes
                Author information
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7434-4856
                Article
                ncomms10541
                10.1038/ncomms10541
                4738359
                26817514
                f168b7c2-26d3-4585-b599-28de5a4d3234
                Copyright © 2015, Nature Publishing Group, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited. All Rights Reserved.

                This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

                History
                : 25 June 2015
                : 23 December 2015
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