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opencc-zeroDec 2020View details →

Unrecognized controls on microbial functioning in Blue Carbon ecosystems: the role of mineral enzyme stabilization and allochthonous substrate supply

Tidal wetlands are effective carbon sinks, mitigating climate change through the long-term removal of atmospheric CO2. Studies along surface-elevation and thus flooding-frequency gradients in tidal wetlands are often used to understand the effects of accelerated sea-level rise on carbon sequestration, a process that is primarily determined by the balance of primary production and microbial decomposition. It has often been hypothesized that rates of microbial decomposition would increase with elevation and associated increases in soil oxygen availability; however, previous studies yield a wide range of outcomes and equivocal results. Our mechanistic understanding of the elevation-decomposition relationship is limited because most effort has been devoted to understanding the terminal steps of the decomposition process. Few studies assessed microbial exo-enzyme activities (EEAs) as initial and rate-limiting steps that often reveal important insight into microbial energy and nutrient constraints. The present study assessed EEAs and microbial abundance along a coastal ecotone stretching a flooding gradient from tidal flat to high marsh in the European Wadden Sea. We found that stabilization of exo-enzymes to mineral sediments leads to high specific EEAs at low substrate concentrations in frequently flooded, sediment rich zones of the studied ecotone. We argue that the high background activity of a mineral-associated enzyme pool provides a stable decomposition matrix in highly dynamic, frequently flooded zones. Furthermore, we demonstrate that microbial communities are less nutrient limited in frequently flooded zones, where inputs of nutrient-rich marine organic matter are higher. This was reflected in both increasing exo-enzymatic carbon-vs.-nutrient acquisition and decreasing fungal-vs.-bacterial abundance with increasing flooding frequency. Our findings thereby suggest two previously unrecognized mechanisms that may contribute to stimulated microbial activity despite decreasing oxygen availability in response to accelerated sea-level rise.

opencc-zeroMay 2020View details →

Data from: Effects of aridity on soil microbial communities and functions across soil depths on the Mongolian Plateau

1. Arid and semi-arid grassland ecosystems cover about 15% of the global land surface and provide vital soil carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) sequestration. Although half of the soil C and N is stored in deep soils (below 30 cm), no regional-scale study of microbial properties and their functions through the soil profile has been conducted in these drylands. 2. To explore the distribution and determinants of microbial properties and C and N mineralization rates through soil profile along aridity gradient at a regional scale, we investigated these variables for four soil layers (0-20, 20-40, 40-60, and 60-100 cm) in 132 plots on the Mongolia Plateau. 3. Soil microbial properties (biomass and bacteria:fungi ratio) and C and N mineralization rates decreased with increasing soil depth and aridity at the regional scale. Aridity-induced declines in soil microbial properties mainly resulted from the negative effects of aridity on ANPP/root biomass and soil organic C (SOC) in the surface soil layers (0-20 and 20-40 cm) but from the direct and indirect (via SOC and soil C/N) negative effects of aridity in the deep soil layers (40-60 and 60-100 cm). 4. Aridity-induced declines in soil C mineralization rates mainly resulted from the negative indirect effect of aridity on SOC and microbial properties in each soil layer, with weaker effects of SOC and stronger effects of soil microbes in the deep soil layers. Aridity-induced declines in soil N mineralization rates mainly resulted from the negative indirect effect of aridity on SOC in the three soil layers above 60 cm and mainly resulted from the negative direct effect of aridity in the 60-100 cm soil layer. 5. Aridity via direct or indirect effects strongly determined the patterns of soil microbial properties and C and N mineralization throughout soil profiles on the Mongolian Plateau. These findings suggest that the increases in aridity are likely to induce changes in soil microorganisms and their associated functions across soil depths of semi-arid grasslands, and future models should consider the dynamic interactions between substrates and microbial properties across soil depths in global drylands.

opencc-zeroMar 2022View details →

Evaluating the roles of microbial functional breadth and home-field advantage in leaf litter decomposition

Soil biota are increasingly recognized as a primary control on litter decomposition at both local and regional scales, but the precise mechanisms by which biota influence litter decomposition have yet to be identified. There are multiple hypothesized mechanisms by which biotic communities may influence litter decomposition – for example, decomposer communities may be specially adapted to local litter inputs and therefore decompose litter from their home ecosystem at elevated rates. This mechanism is known as the home-field advantage (HFA) hypothesis. Alternatively, litter decomposition rates may simply depend upon the range of metabolic functions present within a decomposer community. This mechanism is known as the functional breadth (FB) hypothesis. However, the relative importance of HFA and FB in litter decomposition are unknown, as are the microbial community drivers of HFA and FB. Potential relationships/tradeoffs between microbial HFA and FB are also unknown. To investigate the roles of HFA and FB in litter decomposition, we collected litter and soil from six different ecosystems across the continental US and conducted a full factorial litter × soil inoculum experiment. We measured litter decomposition (i.e., cumulative CO2-C respired) over 150 days and used an analytical model to calculate the HFA and FB of each microbial decomposer community. Our results indicated clear functional differences among decomposer communities, i.e., litter sources were decomposed differently by different decomposer communities. These differences were primarily due to differences in FB between different communities, while HFA effects were less evident. We observed a positive relationship between HFA and the disturbance-sensitive bacterial phylum Verruomicrobia, suggesting that HFA may be an important mechanism in undisturbed environments. We also observed a negative relationship between bacterial r vs. K strategists and FB, suggesting an important link between microbial life history strategies and litter decomposition functions. Microbial FB and HFA exhibited a strong unimodal relationship, where high HFA was observed at intermediate FB values, while low HFA was associated with both low and high FB. This suggests that adaptation of decomposers to local plant inputs (i.e., high HFA) constrains FB, which requires broad rather than specialized functionality. Further, this relationship suggests that HFA effects will not be apparent when communities exhibit high FB and therefore decompose all litters well and also when FB is low and communities decompose all litters poorly. Overall, our study provides new insights into the mechanisms by which microbial communities influence the decomposition of leaf litter.

opencc-zeroMar 2022View details →

Supplementary material 1 from: Biessy L, Pearman JK, Waters S, Vandergoes MJ, Wood SA (2022) Metagenomic insights to the functional potential of sediment microbial communities in freshwater lakes. Metabarcoding and Metagenomics 6: e79265. https://doi.org/10.3897/mbmg.6.79265

Figures S1–S6

opencc-zeroMar 2022View details →

Supplementary material 2 from: Biessy L, Pearman JK, Waters S, Vandergoes MJ, Wood SA (2022) Metagenomic insights to the functional potential of sediment microbial communities in freshwater lakes. Metabarcoding and Metagenomics 6: e79265. https://doi.org/10.3897/mbmg.6.79265

Tables S1, S2

opencc-by-4.0Oct 2021View details →

Dataset associated to: Controlling the Carbon-Bio Interface via Glycan Functional Adlayers for Applications in Microbial Fuel Cell Bioanodes

This file contains the dataset associated to the published research article "Controlling the Carbon-Bio Interface via Glycan Functional Adlayers for Applications in Microbial Fuel Cell Bioanodes". The dataset contains Atomic Force Microscopy, electrochemistry, Microbial Fuel Cells power output, water contact angle and quartz crystal microbalance raw data from their relative instruments. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 799175 (HiBriCarbon). This publication has also emanated from research conducted with the financial support of Science Foundation Ireland under Grant No. 13/CDA/2213 and 19/FFP/6761. The authors thank the France-Ireland PHC ULYSSES programme for support, project 36028UB. F.B. thanks Rennes Métropole for the co-funding of a Quartz Crystal Microbalance. T.P. thanks Région Bretagne for the co-funding of his PhD.

opencc-zeroOct 2021View details →

Data from: Functional attractors in microbial community assembly

For microbiome biology to become a more predictive science, we must identify which descriptive features of microbial communities are reproducible and predictable, which are not, and why. We address this question by experimentally studying parallelism and convergence in microbial community assembly in replicate glucose-limited habitats. Here, we show that the previously observed family-level convergence in these habitats reflects a reproducible metabolic organization, where the ratio of the dominant metabolic groups can be explained from a simple resource-partitioning model. In turn, taxonomic divergence among replicate communities arises from multistability in population dynamics. Multistability can also lead to alternative functional states in closed ecosystems, but not in metacommunities. Our findings empirically illustrate how the evolutionary conservation of quantitative metabolic traits, multistability, and the inherent stochasticity of population dynamics, may all conspire to generate the patterns of reproducibility and variability at different levels of organization that are commonplace in microbial community assembly.

Supplementary material 4 from: Azzaro M, Packard TT, Monticelli LS, Maimone G, Rappazzo AC, Azzaro F, Grilli F, Crisafi E, La Ferla R (2019) Microbial metabolic rates in the Ross Sea: the ABIOCLEAR Project. In: Mazzocchi MG, Capotondi L, Freppaz M, Lugliè A, Campanaro A (Eds) Italian Long-Term Ecological Research for understanding ecosystem diversity and functioning. Case studies from aquatic, terrestrial and transitional domains. Nature Conservation 34: 441-475. https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.34.30631

: Data type: statistical data

Supplementary material 5 from: Azzaro M, Packard TT, Monticelli LS, Maimone G, Rappazzo AC, Azzaro F, Grilli F, Crisafi E, La Ferla R (2019) Microbial metabolic rates in the Ross Sea: the ABIOCLEAR Project. In: Mazzocchi MG, Capotondi L, Freppaz M, Lugliè A, Campanaro A (Eds) Italian Long-Term Ecological Research for understanding ecosystem diversity and functioning. Case studies from aquatic, terrestrial and transitional domains. Nature Conservation 34: 441-475. https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.34.30631

: Data type: measurement

Supplementary material 3 from: Azzaro M, Packard TT, Monticelli LS, Maimone G, Rappazzo AC, Azzaro F, Grilli F, Crisafi E, La Ferla R (2019) Microbial metabolic rates in the Ross Sea: the ABIOCLEAR Project. In: Mazzocchi MG, Capotondi L, Freppaz M, Lugliè A, Campanaro A (Eds) Italian Long-Term Ecological Research for understanding ecosystem diversity and functioning. Case studies from aquatic, terrestrial and transitional domains. Nature Conservation 34: 441-475. https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.34.30631

: Data type: measurements

Supplementary material 2 from: Azzaro M, Packard TT, Monticelli LS, Maimone G, Rappazzo AC, Azzaro F, Grilli F, Crisafi E, La Ferla R (2019) Microbial metabolic rates in the Ross Sea: the ABIOCLEAR Project. In: Mazzocchi MG, Capotondi L, Freppaz M, Lugliè A, Campanaro A (Eds) Italian Long-Term Ecological Research for understanding ecosystem diversity and functioning. Case studies from aquatic, terrestrial and transitional domains. Nature Conservation 34: 441-475. https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.34.30631

: Data type: parameters data

Supplementary material 1 from: Azzaro M, Packard TT, Monticelli LS, Maimone G, Rappazzo AC, Azzaro F, Grilli F, Crisafi E, La Ferla R (2019) Microbial metabolic rates in the Ross Sea: the ABIOCLEAR Project. In: Mazzocchi MG, Capotondi L, Freppaz M, Lugliè A, Campanaro A (Eds) Italian Long-Term Ecological Research for understanding ecosystem diversity and functioning. Case studies from aquatic, terrestrial and transitional domains. Nature Conservation 34: 441-475. https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.34.30631

: Data type: measurement