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1. Exploring Microbiome Functional Dynamics through Space and Time with Trait-Based Theory

   Bittleston, L.S. ; Freedman, Z.B. ; Bernardin, J.R. ; Grothjan, J.J. ; Young, E.B. ; Record, S. ; Baiser, B. ; Gray, S.M. ( August 2021 , mSystems)

   Shade, A.L. (Ed.)

   Microbiomes play essential roles in the health and function of animal and plant hosts and drive nutrient cycling across ecosystems. Integrating novel trait-based approaches with ecological theory can facilitate the prediction of microbial functional traits important for ecosystem functioning and health. In particular, the yield-acquisition-stress (Y-A-S) framework considers dominant microbial life history strategies across gradients of resource availability and stress. However, microbiomes are dynamic, and spatial and temporal shifts in taxonomic and trait composition can affect ecosystem functions. We posit that extending the Y-A-S framework to microbiomes during succession and across biogeographic gradients can lead to generalizable rules for how microbiomes and their functions respond to resources and stress across space, time, and diverse ecosystems. We demonstrate the potential of this framework by applying it to the microbiomes hosted by the carnivorous pitcher plant Sarracenia purpurea, which have clear successional trajectories and are distributed across a broad climatic gradient.
2. Predictable Changes in Eelgrass Microbiomes with Increasing Wasting Disease Prevalence across 23° Latitude in the Northeastern Pacific

   https://doi.org/10.1128/msystems.00224-22  

   Beatty, Deanna S. ; Aoki, Lillian R. ; Rappazzo, Brendan ; Bergman, Chelsea ; Domke, Lia K. ; Duffy, J. Emmett ; Dubois, Katie ; Eckert, Ginny L. ; Gomes, Carla ; Graham, Olivia J. ; et al ( August 2022 , mSystems)

   Raina, Jean-Baptiste (Ed.)

   ABSTRACT Predicting outcomes of marine disease outbreaks presents a challenge in the face of both global and local stressors. Host-associated microbiomes may play important roles in disease dynamics but remain understudied in marine ecosystems. Host–pathogen–microbiome interactions can vary across host ranges, gradients of disease, and temperature; studying these relationships may aid our ability to forecast disease dynamics. Eelgrass, Zostera marina , is impacted by outbreaks of wasting disease caused by the opportunistic pathogen Labyrinthula zosterae . We investigated how Z. marina phyllosphere microbial communities vary with rising wasting disease lesion prevalence and severity relative to plant and meadow characteristics like shoot density, longest leaf length, and temperature across 23° latitude in the Northeastern Pacific. We detected effects of geography (11%) and smaller, but distinct, effects of temperature (30-day max sea surface temperature, 4%) and disease (lesion prevalence, 3%) on microbiome composition. Declines in alpha diversity on asymptomatic tissue occurred with rising wasting disease prevalence within meadows. However, no change in microbiome variability (dispersion) was detected between asymptomatic and symptomatic tissues. Further, we identified members of Cellvibrionaceae, Colwelliaceae, and Granulosicoccaceae on asymptomatic tissue that are predictive of wasting disease prevalence across the geographic range (3,100 kilometers). Functional roles of Colwelliaceae andmore »Granulosicoccaceae are not known. Cellvibrionaceae, degraders of plant cellulose, were also enriched in lesions and adjacent green tissue relative to nonlesioned leaves. Cellvibrionaceae may play important roles in disease progression by degrading host tissues or overwhelming plant immune responses. Thus, inclusion of microbiomes in wasting disease studies may improve our ability to understand variable rates of infection, disease progression, and plant survival. IMPORTANCE The roles of marine microbiomes in disease remain poorly understood due, in part, to the challenging nature of sampling at appropriate spatiotemporal scales and across natural gradients of disease throughout host ranges. This is especially true for marine vascular plants like eelgrass ( Zostera marina ) that are vital for ecosystem function and biodiversity but are susceptible to rapid decline and die-off from pathogens like eukaryotic slime-mold Labyrinthula zosterae (wasting disease). We link bacterial members of phyllosphere tissues to the prevalence of wasting disease across the broadest geographic range to date for a marine plant microbiome-disease study (3,100 km). We identify Cellvibrionaceae, plant cell wall degraders, enriched (up to 61% relative abundance) within lesion tissue, which suggests this group may be playing important roles in disease progression. These findings suggest inclusion of microbiomes in marine disease studies will improve our ability to predict ecological outcomes of infection across variable landscapes spanning thousands of kilometers.« less
3. Environmental stress destabilizes microbial networks

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41396-020-00882-x  

   Hernandez, Damian J. ; David, Aaron S. ; Menges, Eric S. ; Searcy, Christopher A. ; Afkhami, Michelle E. ( January 2021 , The ISME Journal)

   Environmental stress is increasing worldwide, yet we lack a clear picture of how stress disrupts the stability of microbial communities and the ecosystem services they provide. Here, we present the first evidence that naturally-occurring microbiomes display network properties characteristic of unstable communities when under persistent stress. By assessing changes in diversity and structure of soil microbiomes along 40 replicate stress gradients (elevation/water availability gradients) in the Florida scrub ecosystem, we show that: (1) prokaryotic and fungal diversity decline in high stress, and (2) two network properties of stable microbial communities—modularity and negative:positive cohesion—have a clear negative relationship with environmental stress, explaining 51–78% of their variation. Interestingly, pathogenic taxa/functional guilds decreased in relative abundance along the stress gradient, while oligotrophs and mutualists increased, suggesting that the shift in negative:positive cohesion could result from decreasing negative:positive biotic interactions consistent with the predictions of the Stress Gradient Hypothesis. Given the crucial role microbiomes play in ecosystem functions, our results suggest that, by limiting the compartmentalization of microbial associations and creating communities dominated by positive associations, increasing stress in the Anthropocene could destabilize microbiomes and undermine their ecosystem services.
4. Primary productivity as a control over soil microbial diversity along environmental gradients in a polar desert ecosystem

   https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3377  

   Geyer, Kevin M. ; Takacs-Vesbach, Cristina D. ; Gooseff, Michael N. ; Barrett, John E. ( January 2017 , PeerJ)

   Primary production is the fundamental source of energy to foodwebs and ecosystems, and is thus an important constraint on soil communities. This coupling is particularly evident in polar terrestrial ecosystems where biological diversity and activity is tightly constrained by edaphic gradients of productivity (e.g., soil moisture, organic carbon availability) and geochemical severity (e.g., pH, electrical conductivity). In the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica, environmental gradients determine numerous properties of soil communities and yet relatively few estimates of gross or net primary productivity (GPP, NPP) exist for this region. Here we describe a survey utilizing pulse amplitude modulation (PAM) fluorometry to estimate rates of GPP across a broad environmental gradient along with belowground microbial diversity and decomposition. PAM estimates of GPP ranged from an average of 0.27 μmol O 2 /m 2 /s in the most arid soils to an average of 6.97 μmol O 2 /m 2 /s in the most productive soils, the latter equivalent to 217 g C/m 2 /y in annual NPP assuming a 60 day growing season. A diversity index of four carbon-acquiring enzyme activities also increased with soil productivity, suggesting that the diversity of organic substrates in mesic environments may be an additional driver ofmore »microbial diversity. Overall, soil productivity was a stronger predictor of microbial diversity and enzymatic activity than any estimate of geochemical severity. These results highlight the fundamental role of environmental gradients to control community diversity and the dynamics of ecosystem-scale carbon pools in arid systems.« less
5. Effects of tidal influence on the structure and function of prokaryotic communities in the sediments of a pristine Brazilian mangrove

   https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-2259-2021  

   de Santana, Carolina Oliveira ; Spealman, Pieter ; Melo, Vânia Maria ; Gresham, David ; de Jesus, Taíse Bomfim ; Chinalia, Fabio Alexandre ( January 2021 , Biogeosciences)

   Abstract. Mangrove forests are ecosystems that constitute a large portion of the world's coastline and span tidal zones below, between, and above thewaterline, and the ecosystem as a whole is defined by the health of these tidal microhabitats. However, we are only beginning to understand tidal-zone microbial biodiversity and the role of these microbiomes in nutrient cycling. While extensive research has characterized microbiomes inpristine vs. anthropogenically impacted mangroves, these have, largely, overlooked differences in tidal microhabitats (sublittoral, intertidal, andsupralittoral). Unfortunately, the small number of studies that have sought to characterize mangrove tidal zones have occurred in impacted biomes,making interpretation of the results difficult. Here, we characterized prokaryotic populations and their involvement in nutrient cycling across thetidal zones of a pristine mangrove within a Brazilian Environmental Protection Area of the Atlantic Forest. We hypothesized that the tidal zones inpristine mangroves are distinct microhabitats, which we defined as distinct regions that present spatial variations in the water regime and otherenvironmental factors, and as such, these are composed of different prokaryotic communities with distinct functional profiles. Samples werecollected in triplicate from zones below, between, and above the tidal waterline. Using 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene amplicon sequencing, we found distinctprokaryotic communities with significantlymore »diverse nutrient-cycling functions, as well as specific taxa with varying contributions to functionalabundances between zones. Where previous research from anthropogenically impacted mangroves found the intertidal zone to have high prokaryoticdiversity and be functionally enriched in nitrogen cycling, we find that the intertidal zone from pristine mangroves has the lowest diversity and nofunctional enrichment, relative to the other tidal zones. The main bacterial phyla in all samples were Firmicutes, Proteobacteria,and Chloroflexi while the main archaeal phyla were Crenarchaeota and Thaumarchaeota. Our results differ slightly fromother studies where Proteobacteria is the main phyla in mangrove sediments and Firmicutes makes up only a small percentage ofthe communities. Salinity and organic matter were the most relevant environmental factors influencing these communities. Bacillaceae wasthe most abundant family at each tidal zone and showed potential to drive a large proportion of the cycling of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, andsulfur. Our findings suggest that some aspects of mangrove tidal zonation may be compromised by human activity, especially in the intertidal zone.« less