We studied the dominant protists found in soils across the globe and their contributions to belowground food webs.
Soil carbon losses to the atmosphere, via soil heterotrophic respiration, are expected to increase in response to global warming, resulting in a positive carbon-climate feedback. Despite the well-known suite of abiotic and biotic factors controlling soil respiration, much less is known about how the magnitude of soil respiration responses to temperature changes over soil development and across contrasting soil properties. Here, we investigated the role of soil development stage and soil properties in driving the responses of soil heterotrophic respiration to increasing temperatures. We incubated soils from eight chronosequences ranging in soil age from hundreds to million years, and encompassing a wide range of vegetation types, climatic conditions, and chronosequences origins, at three assay temperatures (5, 15 and 25\uffc2\uffb0C). We found a consistent positive effect of assay temperature on soil respiration rates across the eight chronosequences evaluated. However, soil properties such as organic carbon concentration, texture, pH, phosphorus content, and microbial biomass determined the magnitude of temperature effects on soil respiration. Finally, we observed a positive effect of soil development stage on soil respiration that did not alter the magnitude of assay temperature effects. Our work reveals that key soil properties alter the magnitude of the positive effect of temperature on soil respiration found across ecosystem types and soil development stages. This information is essential to better understand the magnitude of the carbon-climate feedback, and thus to establish accurate greenhouse gas emission targets.Past vegetation and climatic conditions are known to influence current biodiversity patterns. However, whether their legacy effects affect the provision of multiple ecosystem functions, that is, multifunctionality, remains largely unknown. Here we analyzed soil nutrient stocks and their transformation rates in 236 drylands from six continents to evaluate the associations between current levels of multifunctionality and legacy effects of the\uffc2\uffa0Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) desert biome distribution and climate. We found that past desert distribution and temperature legacy, defined as increasing temperature from LGM, were negatively correlated with contemporary multifunctionality even after accounting for predictors such as current climate, soil texture, plant species richness, and site topography. Ecosystems that have been deserts since the LGM had up to 30% lower contemporary multifunctionality compared with those that were nondeserts during the LGM. In addition, ecosystems that experienced higher warming rates since the LGM had lower contemporary multifunctionality than those suffering lower warming rates, with a ~9% reduction per extra degree Celsius. Past desert distribution and temperature legacies had direct negative effects, while temperature legacy also had indirect (via soil sand content) negative effects on multifunctionality. Our results indicate that past biome and climatic conditions have left a strong \uffe2\uff80\uff9cfunctionality debt\uffe2\uff80\uff9d in global drylands. They also suggest that ongoing warming and expansion of desert areas may leave a strong fingerprint in the future functioning of dryland ecosystems worldwide that needs to be considered when establishing management actions aiming to combat land degradation and desertification.Despite having key functions in terrestrial ecosystems, information on the dominant soil fungi and their ecological preferences at the global scale is lacking. To fill this knowledge gap, we surveyed 235 soils from across the globe. Our findings indicate that 83 phylotypes (<0.1% of the retrieved fungi), mostly belonging to wind dispersed, generalist Ascomycota, dominate soils globally. We identify patterns and ecological drivers of dominant soil fungal taxa occurrence, and present a map of their distribution in soils worldwide. Whole-genome comparisons with less dominant, generalist fungi point at a significantly higher number of genes related to stress-tolerance and resource uptake in the dominant fungi, suggesting that they might be better in colonising a wide range of environments. Our findings constitute a major advance in our understanding of the ecology of fungi, and have implications for the development of strategies to preserve them and the ecosystem functions they provide.Under controlled laboratory conditions, high and low ammonium availability are known to favor soil ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and archaea (AOA) communities, respectively. However, whether this niche segregation is maintained under field conditions in terrestrial ecosystems remains unresolved, particularly at the global scale. We hypothesized that perennial vegetation might favor AOB vs. AOA communities compared with adjacent open areas devoid of perennial vegetation (i.e., bare soil) via several mechanisms, including increasing the amount of ammonium in soil. To test this niche-differentiation hypothesis, we conducted a global field survey including 80 drylands from 6 continents. Data supported our hypothesis, as soils collected under plant canopies had higher levels of ammonium, as well as higher richness (number of terminal restriction fragments; T-RFs) and abundance (qPCR amoA genes) of AOB, and lower richness and abundance of AOA, than those collected in open areas located between plant canopies. Some of the reported associations between plant canopies and AOA and AOB communities can be a consequence of the higher organic matter and available N contents found under plant canopies. Other aspects of soils associated with vegetation including shading and microclimatic conditions might also help explain our results. Our findings provide strong evidence for niche differentiation between AOA and AOB communities in drylands worldwide, advancing our understanding of their ecology and biogeography at the global scale.Greenspaces are important for sustaining healthy urban environments and their human populations. Yet their capacity to support multiple ecosystem services simultaneously (multiservices) compared with nearby natural ecosystems remains virtually unknown. We conducted a global field survey in 56 urban areas to investigate the influence of urban greenspaces on 23 soil and plant attributes and compared them with nearby natural environments. We show that, in general, urban greenspaces and nearby natural areas support similar levels of soil multiservices, with only six of 23 attributes (available phosphorus, water holding capacity, water respiration, plant cover, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), and arachnid richness) significantly greater in greenspaces, and one (available ammonium) greater in natural areas. Further analyses showed that, although natural areas and urban greenspaces delivered a similar number of services at low (>25% threshold) and moderate (>50%) levels of functioning, natural systems supported significantly more functions at high (>75%) levels of functioning. Management practices (mowing) played an important role in explaining urban ecosystem services, but there were no effects of fertilisation or irrigation. Some services declined with increasing site size, for both greenspaces and natural areas. Our work highlights the fact that urban greenspaces are more similar to natural environments than previously reported and underscores the importance of managing urban greenspaces not only for their social and recreational values, but for supporting multiple ecosystem services on which soils and human well-being depends.
Plant\uffe2\uff80\uff90associated microbes play essential roles in nutrient uptake and plant productivity, but their role in driving plant germination, a critical stage in the plant life cycle, is still poorly understood.
We used data from a large\uffe2\uff80\uff90scale, field\uffe2\uff80\uff90based soil seed bank study to examine the relationship among plants germinating from the seed bank and soil microbial community composition. We combined this with an experiment using 34 laboratory\uffe2\uff80\uff90based microcosms whereby sterile soil was inoculated with microbes from different field sites to examine how microbes affect the germination of nine plant species.
The community composition of plants in the soil seed bank was highly and significantly associated with bacterial and fungal community composition, with stronger correlations for soil beneath plant canopies. Microbes predicted a unique portion of the variation in the community composition of germinants after accounting for differences in environmental variables. The strongest correlations among microbes and plant functional traits included those related to perenniality, growth form, plant size, root type and seed shape. Our microcosm study showed that different plant species had their own associated germination microbiome, and most plant\uffe2\uff80\uff93microbe interactions were positive during germination.
Synthesis. Our study provides evidence for intimate relationships between plant and soil biodiversity during germination. Our work fills an important knowledge gap for plant\uffe2\uff80\uff93microbe interactions and reveals valuable insights into the shared natural history of plants and microbes in terrestrial ecosystems.
Competition can be fully hierarchical or intransitive, and this degree of hierarchy is driven by multiple factors, including environmental conditions, the functional traits of the species involved or the topology of competition networks. Studies simultaneously analysing these drivers of competition hierarchy are rare. Additionally, organisms compete either directly or via interference competition for resources or space, within a local neighbourhood or across the habitat. Therefore, the drivers of competition could change accordingly and depend on the taxa studied.
We performed the first multi\uffe2\uff80\uff90taxon study on pairwise competition across major taxonomic groups, including experiments with vascular plants, mosses, saprobic fungi, aquatic protists and soil bacteria. We evaluated how general is competition intransitivity from the pairwise competition matrix including all species and also for each possible three\uffe2\uff80\uff90species combination (triplets). We then examined which species were likely to engage in competitive loops and the effects of environmental conditions, competitive rank and functional traits on intransitive competition.
We found some degree of competition intransitivity in all taxa studied, with 38% to 5% of triplets being intransitive. Variance in competitive rank between species and more fertile conditions strongly reduced intransitivity, with triplets composed of species differing widely in their competitive ranks much less likely to be intransitive.
Including functional traits of the species involved more than doubled the variation explained compared to models including competitive rank only. Both trait means and variance within triplets affected the odds of them being intransitive. However, the traits responsible and the direction of trait effects varied widely between taxa, suggesting that traits can have a wide variety of effects on competition.
Synthesis. We evaluated the drivers of competition across multiple taxa and showed that productivity and competitive rank are fundamental drivers of intransitivity. We also showed that not only the functional traits of each species, but also those of the accompanying species, determine competition intransitivity. Intransitive competition is common across multiple taxa but can dampen under fertile conditions or for those species with large variance in their competitive abilities. This provides a first step towards predicting the prevalence of intransitive competition in natural communities.
Despite their importance, how plant communities and soil microorganisms interact to determine the capacity of ecosystems to provide multiple functions simultaneously (multifunctionality) under climate change is poorly known. We conducted a common garden experiment using grassland species to evaluate how plant functional structure and soil microbial (bacteria and protists) diversity and abundance regulate soil multifunctionality responses to joint changes in plant species richness (one, three and six species) and simulated climate change (3\uffc2\uffb0C warming and 35% rainfall reduction). The effects of species richness and climate on soil multifunctionality were indirectly driven via changes in plant functional structure and their relationships with the abundance and diversity of soil bacteria and protists. More specifically, warming selected for the larger and most productive plant species, increasing the average size within communities and leading to reductions in functional plant diversity. These changes increased the total abundance of bacteria that, in turn, increased that of protists, ultimately promoting soil multifunctionality. Our work suggests that cascading effects between plant functional traits and the abundance of multitrophic soil organisms largely regulate the response of soil multifunctionality to simulated climate change, and ultimately provides novel experimental insights into the mechanisms underlying the effects of biodiversity and climate change on ecosystem functioning.Increased human\uffe2\uff80\uff90derived nitrogen (N) deposition to terrestrial ecosystems has resulted in widespread phosphorus (P) limitation of net primary productivity. However, it remains unclear if and how N\uffe2\uff80\uff90induced P limitation varies over time. Soil extracellular phosphatases catalyze the hydrolysis of P from soil organic matter, an important adaptive mechanism for ecosystems to cope with N\uffe2\uff80\uff90induced P limitation. Here we show, using a meta\uffe2\uff80\uff90analysis of 140 studies and 668 observations worldwide, that N stimulation of soil phosphatase activity diminishes over time. Whereas short\uffe2\uff80\uff90term N loading (\uffe2\uff89\uffa45\uffc2\uffa0years) significantly increased soil phosphatase activity by 28%, long\uffe2\uff80\uff90term N loading had no significant effect. Nitrogen loading did not affect soil available P and total P content in either short\uffe2\uff80\uff90 or long\uffe2\uff80\uff90term studies. Together, these results suggest that N\uffe2\uff80\uff90induced P limitation in ecosystems is alleviated in the long\uffe2\uff80\uff90term through the initial stimulation of soil phosphatase activity, thereby securing P supply to support plant growth. Our results suggest that increases in terrestrial carbon uptake due to ongoing anthropogenic N loading may be greater than previously thought.Soil microbes are essential for maintenance of life\uffe2\uff80\uff90supporting ecosystem services, but projections of how these microbes will be affected by global change scenarios are lacking. Therefore, our aim was to provide projections of future soil microbial distribution using several scenarios of global change.LocationGlobal.
Time period1950\uffe2\uff80\uff932090.
Major taxa studiedBacteria and fungi.
MethodsWe used a global database of soil microbial communities across six continents to estimate past and future trends of the soil microbiome. To do so, we used structural equation models to include the direct and indirect effects of changes in climate and land use in our predictions, using current climate (temperature and precipitation) and land\uffe2\uff80\uff90use projections between 1950 and 2090.
ResultsLocal bacterial richness will increase in all scenarios of change in climate and land use considered, although this increase will be followed by a generalized community homogenization process affecting >\uffc2\uffa085% of terrestrial ecosystems. Changes in the relative abundance of functional genes associated with the increases in bacterial richness are also expected. Based on an ecological cluster analysis, our results suggest that phylotypes such asGeodermatophilusspp. (typical desert bacteria),Mycobacteriumsp. (which are known to include important human pathogens),Streptomyces mirabilis(major producers of antibiotic resistance genes) or potential fungal soil\uffe2\uff80\uff90borne plant pathogens belonging to Ascomycota fungi (Venturiaspp.,Devriesiaspp.) will become more abundant in their communities.
Main conclusionsOur results provide evidence that climate change has a stronger influence on soil microbial communities than change in land use (often including deforestation and agricultural expansion), although most of the effects of climate are indirect, through other environmental variables (e.g., changes in soil pH). The same was found for microbial functions such as the prevalence of phosphate transport genes. We provide reliable predictions about the changes in the global distribution of microbial communities, showing an increase in alpha diversity and a homogenization of soil microbial communities in the Anthropocene.
Photoautotrophic soil cyanobacteria play essential ecological roles and are known to exhibit large changes in their diversity and abundance throughout early succession. However, much less is known about how and why soil cyanobacterial communities change as soil develops over centuries and millennia, and the effects that vegetation have on such communities.
We combined an extensive field survey, including 16 global soil chronosequences across contrasting ecosystems (from deserts to tropical forests), with molecular analyses to investigate how the diversity and abundance of photosynthetic and nonphotosynthetic soil cyanobacteria are affected by vegetation change during soil development, over time periods from hundreds to thousands of years.
We show that, in most chronosequences, the abundance, species richness and community composition of soil cyanobacteria are relatively stable as soil develops (from centuries to millennia). Regardless of soil age, forest chronosequences were consistently dominated by nonphotosynthetic cyanobacteria (Vampirovibrionia), while grasslands and shrublands were dominated by photosynthetic cyanobacteria. Chronosequences undergoing drastic vegetation shifts (e.g. transitions from grasslands to forests) experienced significant changes in the composition of soil cyanobacterial communities.
Our results advance our understanding of the ecology of cyanobacterial classes, and of the understudied nonphotosynthetic cyanobacteria in particular, and highlight the key role of vegetation as a major driver of their temporal dynamics as soil develops.
We studied the dominant protists found in soils across the globe and their contributions to belowground food webs.
Increasing aridity due to climate change is expected to affect multiple ecosystem structural and functional attributes in global drylands, which cover \uffe2\uff88\uffbc45% of the terrestrial globe. Berdugo et al. show that increasing aridity promotes thresholds on the structure and functioning of drylands (see the Perspective by Hirota and Oliveira). Their database includes 20 variables summarizing multiple aspects and levels of ecological organization. They found evidence for a series of abrupt ecological events occurring sequentially in three phases, culminating with a shift to low-cover ecosystems that are nutrient- and species-poor at high aridity values. They estimate that more than 20% of land surface will cross at least one of the thresholds by 2100, which can potentially lead to widespread land degradation and desertification worldwide.
Science , this issue p. 787 ; see also p. 739 Soil fungal communities play a key role in agroecosystem sustainability. The complexity of fungal communities, at both taxonomic and functional levels, makes it difficult to find clear patterns connecting community composition with ecosystem function and to understand the impact of biotic (interspecies interactions) and abiotic (e.g., climate or anthropogenic disturbances) factors on it.
", "keywords": ["Ecolog\u00eda (Biolog\u00eda)", "0301 basic medicine", "2. Zero hunger", "0303 health sciences", "agroecosystems", "local networks", "Local networks", "Microbiolog\u00eda (Biolog\u00eda)", "579", "Ecolog\u00eda", "Emergent properties", "15. Life on land", "Microbiolog\u00eda", "fungal communities", "Microbiology", "574", "QR1-502", "Fungal communities", "03 medical and health sciences", "2401.06 Ecolog\u00eda animal", "emergent properties", "11. Sustainability", "2414 Microbiolog\u00eda", "Agroecosystems", "Research Article"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://journals.asm.org/doi/pdf/10.1128/mSystems.00344-21"}, {"href": "https://doi.org/10.1128/msystems.00344-21"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/mSystems", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1128/msystems.00344-21", "name": "item", "description": "10.1128/msystems.00344-21", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1128/msystems.00344-21"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2021-06-29T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.1186/s40168-022-01405-w", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"updated": "2026-05-30T16:20:07Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2022-12-12", "title": "The global distribution and environmental drivers of the soil antibiotic resistome", "description": "Abstract BackgroundLittle is known about the global distribution and environmental drivers of key microbial functional traits such as antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). Soils are one of Earth\uffe2\uff80\uff99s largest reservoirs of ARGs, which are integral for soil microbial competition, and have potential implications for plant and human health. Yet, their diversity and global patterns remain poorly described. Here, we analyzed 285 ARGs in soils from 1012 sites across all continents and created the first global atlas with the distributions of topsoil ARGs.
ResultsWe show that ARGs peaked in high latitude cold and boreal forests. Climatic seasonality and mobile genetic elements, associated with the transmission of antibiotic resistance, were also key drivers of their global distribution. Dominant ARGs were mainly related to multidrug resistance genes and efflux pump machineries. We further pinpointed the global hotspots of the diversity and proportions of soil ARGs.
ConclusionsTogether, our work provides the foundation for a better understanding of the ecology and global distribution of the environmental soil antibiotic resistome.
", "keywords": ["Ecolog\u00eda (Biolog\u00eda)", "0301 basic medicine", "SDG-03: Good health and well-being", "550", "Antibiotic resistance", "Edafolog\u00eda (Biolog\u00eda)", "Antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs)", "910", "http://metadata.un.org/sdg/3", "631.4", "Microbial ecology", "2417.14 Gen\u00e9tica Vegetal", "Soil", "03 medical and health sciences", "XXXXXX - Unknown", "Global scale", "Humans", "Global change", "SCALE", "Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages", "2. Zero hunger", "0303 health sciences", "Ecology", "Research", "QR100-130", "Human health", "15. Life on land", "Gen\u00e9tica", "Anti-Bacterial Agents", "3. Good health", "Phenotype", "Mobile genetic elements", "13. Climate action", "BACTERIA", "2511.02 Biolog\u00eda de Suelos", "RESISTANCE GENES"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://doi.org/10.1186/s40168-022-01405-w"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Microbiome", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1186/s40168-022-01405-w", "name": "item", "description": "10.1186/s40168-022-01405-w", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1186/s40168-022-01405-w"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2022-07-11T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.1371/journal.pone.0260163", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"updated": "2026-05-30T16:20:19Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2021-12-10", "title": "Towards women-inclusive ecology: Representation, behavior, and perception of women at an international conference", "description": "Conferences are ideal platforms for studying gender gaps in science because they are important cultural events that reflect barriers to women in academia. Here, we explored women\u2019s participation in ecology conferences by analyzing female representation, behavior, and personal experience at the 1st Meeting of the Iberian Society of Ecology (SIBECOL). The conference had 722 attendees, 576 contributions, and 27 scientific sessions. The gender of attendees and presenters was balanced (48/52% women/men), yet only 29% of the contributions had a woman as last author. Moreover, men presented most of the keynote talks (67%) and convened most of the sessions. Our results also showed that only 32% of the questions were asked by women, yet the number of questions raised by women increased when the speaker or the convener was a woman. Finally, the post-conference survey revealed that attendees had a good experience and did not perceive the event as a threatening context for women. Yet, differences in the responses between genders suggest that women tended to have a worse experience than their male counterparts. Although our results showed clear gender biases, most of the participants of the conference failed to detect it. Overall, we highlight the challenge of increasing women\u2019s scientific leadership, visibility and interaction in scientific conferences and we suggest several recommendations for creating inclusive meetings, thereby promoting equal opportunities for all participants.
Earthworms are an important soil taxon as ecosystem engineers, providing a variety of crucial ecosystem functions and services. Little is known about their diversity and distribution at large spatial scales, despite the availability of considerable amounts of local-scale data. Earthworm diversity data, obtained from the primary literature or provided directly by authors, were collated with information on site locations, including coordinates, habitat cover, and soil properties. Datasets were required, at a minimum, to include abundance or biomass of earthworms at a site. Where possible, site-level species lists were included, as well as the abundance and biomass of individual species and ecological groups. This global dataset contains 10,840 sites, with 184 species, from 60 countries and all continents except Antarctica. The data were obtained from 182 published articles, published between 1973 and 2017, and 17 unpublished datasets. Amalgamating data into a single global database will assist researchers in investigating and answering a wide variety of pressing questions, for example, jointly assessing aboveground and belowground biodiversity distributions and drivers of biodiversity change.
", "keywords": ["2401.17 Invertebrados", "0301 basic medicine", "592", "Data Descriptor", "Ecology and Evolutionary Biology", "earthworms", "Data Descriptor ; Biodiversity ; Biogeography ; Community ecology", "Plan_S-Compliant-OA", "https://purl.org/becyt/ford/1.6", "[SDV.EE.ECO] Life Sciences [q-bio]/Ecology", " environment/Ecosystems", "Diversity data", "Biomass", "S Agriculture (General)", "Ekologia ja evoluutiobiologia", "[SDV.SA.SDS] Life Sciences [q-bio]/Agricultural sciences/Soil study", "biodiversity", "2. Zero hunger", "maaper\u00e4", "abundance", "Data", "Diversity", "0303 health sciences", "Ecology", "Q", "eli\u00f6yhteis\u00f6t", "Biodiversity", "maaper\u00e4eli\u00f6st\u00f6", "ddc:", "Computer Science Applications", "Biogeography", "2401.06 Ecolog\u00eda animal", "international", "Statistics", " Probability and Uncertainty", "environment/Ecosystems", "Information Systems", "Statistics and Probability", "Ecolog\u00eda (Biolog\u00eda)", "570", "lierot", "Science", "Invertebrados", "577", "Global database", "[SDV.SA.SDS]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Agricultural sciences/Soil study", "Library and Information Sciences", "574", "333", "soil", "eli\u00f6maantiede", "Education", "diversity", "03 medical and health sciences", "[SDV.EE.ECO]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Ecology", " environment/Ecosystems", "BIODIVERSITY CHANGE", "Life Science", "Earthworms", "Datasets", "Animals", "Community ecology", "Oligochaeta", "https://purl.org/becyt/ford/1", "eartworm", "biogeography", "Ecosystem", "LAND-USE", "biomass", "500", "Biology and Life Sciences", "PLATFORM", "Global dataset", "Oligochaeta/classification", "500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik::570 Biowissenschaften; Biologie::570 Biowissenschaften; Biologie", "Ecolog\u00eda", "15. Life on land", "biodiversiteetti", "Environmental sciences", "[SDE.BE] Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology", "maaper\u00e4el\u00e4imist\u00f6", "Ecology", " evolutionary biology", "13. Climate action", "Earthworm", "[SDV.EE.ECO]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Ecology", "570 Life sciences; biology", "[SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology", "eartworm ; abundance ; biomass ; diversity", "COMMUNITIES", "community ecology"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-021-00912-z.pdf"}, {"href": "https://pub.epsilon.slu.se/25868/1/phillips_h_r_p_et_al_211019.pdf"}, {"href": "https://boris.unibe.ch/165726/1/48.__Global_data_on_earthworm_abundance__biomass__diversity_and_corresponding_environmental_properties.pdf"}, {"href": "https://www.iris.unict.it/bitstream/20.500.11769/509583/1/SCIENTIFIC%20DATA%20%282021%29%20GLOBAL%20DATA%20ON%20EARTHWORMS.pdf"}, {"href": "https://rau.repository.guildhe.ac.uk/id/eprint/16454/1/Phillips_et_al-2021-Scientific_Data.pdf"}, {"href": "https://doi.org/10.17169/refubium-31202"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Scientific%20Data", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.17169/refubium-31202", "name": "item", "description": "10.17169/refubium-31202", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.17169/refubium-31202"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2021-05-21T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.3390/life10020014", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"updated": "2026-05-30T16:21:53Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2020-02-10", "title": "Synthetic Biology for Terraformation Lessons from Mars, Earth, and the Microbiome", "description": "What is the potential for synthetic biology as a way of engineering, on a large scale, complex ecosystems? Can it be used to change endangered ecological communities and rescue them to prevent their collapse? What are the best strategies for such ecological engineering paths to succeed? Is it possible to create stable, diverse synthetic ecosystems capable of persisting in closed environments? Can synthetic communities be created to thrive on planets different from ours? These and other questions pervade major future developments within synthetic biology. The goal of engineering ecosystems is plagued with all kinds of technological, scientific and ethic problems. In this paper, we consider the requirements for terraformation, i.e., for changing a given environment to make it hospitable to some given class of life forms. Although the standard use of this term involved strategies for planetary terraformation, it has been recently suggested that this approach could be applied to a very different context: ecological communities within our own planet. As discussed here, this includes multiple scales, from the gut microbiome to the entire biosphere.
Atmospheric nitrogen (N) inputs in the Mediterranean Basin are projected to increase due to fossil fuel combustion, fertilizer use, and the exacerbation of agricultural production processes. Although increasing N deposition is recognized as a major threat to ecosystem functioning, little is known about how local environmental conditions modulate ecosystem function response to N addition, particularly in the context of Mediterranean-Basin ecosystems. Here, we assess how N addition affects important ecosystem properties associated with litter decomposition, soil physical-chemical properties, soil extracellular enzymatic activity and microbial abundance across three long-term N addition experimental sites in the Mediterranean Basin. Sites were located in El Regajal (Madrid, Spain), Capo Caccia (Alghero, Italy), and Arr\u00e1bida (Lisbon, Portugal) and are all representative of Mediterranean shrublands. No common pattern for litter decomposition process or other studied variables emerged among the control plots of the studied sites. Nitrogen supply only affected soil pH, a major driver of decomposition, in two out of three experimental sites. Moreover, when we explored the role of N addition and soil pH in controlling litter decay, we found that the effects of these factors were site-dependent. Our results point out to local ecosystem features modulating N addition effects in controlling litter decomposition rates in Mediterranean ecosystems, suggesting that the responses of soil functioning to N deposition are site-dependent. These findings provide further knowledge to understand contrasting ecosystem responses to N additions based on a single field experiments.
Under controlled laboratory conditions, high and low ammonium availability are known to favor soil ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and archaea (AOA) communities, respectively. However, whether this niche segregation is maintained under field conditions in terrestrial ecosystems remains unresolved, particularly at the global scale. We hypothesized that perennial vegetation might favor AOB vs. AOA communities compared with adjacent open areas devoid of perennial vegetation (i.e., bare soil) via several mechanisms, including increasing the amount of ammonium in soil. To test this niche-differentiation hypothesis, we conducted a global field survey including 80 drylands from 6 continents. Data supported our hypothesis, as soils collected under plant canopies had higher levels of ammonium, as well as higher richness (number of terminal restriction fragments; T-RFs) and abundance (qPCR amoA genes) of AOB, and lower richness and abundance of AOA, than those collected in open areas located between plant canopies. Some of the reported associations between plant canopies and AOA and AOB communities can be a consequence of the higher organic matter and available N contents found under plant canopies. Other aspects of soils associated with vegetation including shading and microclimatic conditions might also help explain our results. Our findings provide strong evidence for niche differentiation between AOA and AOB communities in drylands worldwide, advancing our understanding of their ecology and biogeography at the global scale.Under controlled laboratory conditions, high and low ammonium availability are known to favor soil ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and archaea (AOA) communities, respectively. However, whether this niche segregation is maintained under field conditions in terrestrial ecosystems remains unresolved, particularly at the global scale. We hypothesized that perennial vegetation might favor AOB vs. AOA communities compared with adjacent open areas devoid of perennial vegetation (i.e., bare soil) via several mechanisms, including increasing the amount of ammonium in soil. To test this niche-differentiation hypothesis, we conducted a global field survey including 80 drylands from 6 continents. Data supported our hypothesis, as soils collected under plant canopies had higher levels of ammonium, as well as higher richness (number of terminal restriction fragments; T-RFs) and abundance (qPCR amoA genes) of AOB, and lower richness and abundance of AOA, than those collected in open areas located between plant canopies. Some of the reported associations between plant canopies and AOA and AOB communities can be a consequence of the higher organic matter and available N contents found under plant canopies. Other aspects of soils associated with vegetation including shading and microclimatic conditions might also help explain our results. Our findings provide strong evidence for niche differentiation between AOA and AOB communities in drylands worldwide, advancing our understanding of their ecology and biogeography at the global scale.Increased human\uffe2\uff80\uff90derived nitrogen (N) deposition to terrestrial ecosystems has resulted in widespread phosphorus (P) limitation of net primary productivity. However, it remains unclear if and how N\uffe2\uff80\uff90induced P limitation varies over time. Soil extracellular phosphatases catalyze the hydrolysis of P from soil organic matter, an important adaptive mechanism for ecosystems to cope with N\uffe2\uff80\uff90induced P limitation. Here we show, using a meta\uffe2\uff80\uff90analysis of 140 studies and 668 observations worldwide, that N stimulation of soil phosphatase activity diminishes over time. Whereas short\uffe2\uff80\uff90term N loading (\uffe2\uff89\uffa45\uffc2\uffa0years) significantly increased soil phosphatase activity by 28%, long\uffe2\uff80\uff90term N loading had no significant effect. Nitrogen loading did not affect soil available P and total P content in either short\uffe2\uff80\uff90 or long\uffe2\uff80\uff90term studies. Together, these results suggest that N\uffe2\uff80\uff90induced P limitation in ecosystems is alleviated in the long\uffe2\uff80\uff90term through the initial stimulation of soil phosphatase activity, thereby securing P supply to support plant growth. Our results suggest that increases in terrestrial carbon uptake due to ongoing anthropogenic N loading may be greater than previously thought.
Photoautotrophic soil cyanobacteria play essential ecological roles and are known to exhibit large changes in their diversity and abundance throughout early succession. However, much less is known about how and why soil cyanobacterial communities change as soil develops over centuries and millennia, and the effects that vegetation have on such communities.
We combined an extensive field survey, including 16 global soil chronosequences across contrasting ecosystems (from deserts to tropical forests), with molecular analyses to investigate how the diversity and abundance of photosynthetic and nonphotosynthetic soil cyanobacteria are affected by vegetation change during soil development, over time periods from hundreds to thousands of years.
We show that, in most chronosequences, the abundance, species richness and community composition of soil cyanobacteria are relatively stable as soil develops (from centuries to millennia). Regardless of soil age, forest chronosequences were consistently dominated by nonphotosynthetic cyanobacteria (Vampirovibrionia), while grasslands and shrublands were dominated by photosynthetic cyanobacteria. Chronosequences undergoing drastic vegetation shifts (e.g. transitions from grasslands to forests) experienced significant changes in the composition of soil cyanobacterial communities.
Our results advance our understanding of the ecology of cyanobacterial classes, and of the understudied nonphotosynthetic cyanobacteria in particular, and highlight the key role of vegetation as a major driver of their temporal dynamics as soil develops.
Competition can be fully hierarchical or intransitive, and this degree of hierarchy is driven by multiple factors, including environmental conditions, the functional traits of the species involved or the topology of competition networks. Studies simultaneously analysing these drivers of competition hierarchy are rare. Additionally, organisms compete either directly or via interference competition for resources or space, within a local neighbourhood or across the habitat. Therefore, the drivers of competition could change accordingly and depend on the taxa studied.
We performed the first multi\uffe2\uff80\uff90taxon study on pairwise competition across major taxonomic groups, including experiments with vascular plants, mosses, saprobic fungi, aquatic protists and soil bacteria. We evaluated how general is competition intransitivity from the pairwise competition matrix including all species and also for each possible three\uffe2\uff80\uff90species combination (triplets). We then examined which species were likely to engage in competitive loops and the effects of environmental conditions, competitive rank and functional traits on intransitive competition.
We found some degree of competition intransitivity in all taxa studied, with 38% to 5% of triplets being intransitive. Variance in competitive rank between species and more fertile conditions strongly reduced intransitivity, with triplets composed of species differing widely in their competitive ranks much less likely to be intransitive.
Including functional traits of the species involved more than doubled the variation explained compared to models including competitive rank only. Both trait means and variance within triplets affected the odds of them being intransitive. However, the traits responsible and the direction of trait effects varied widely between taxa, suggesting that traits can have a wide variety of effects on competition.
Synthesis. We evaluated the drivers of competition across multiple taxa and showed that productivity and competitive rank are fundamental drivers of intransitivity. We also showed that not only the functional traits of each species, but also those of the accompanying species, determine competition intransitivity. Intransitive competition is common across multiple taxa but can dampen under fertile conditions or for those species with large variance in their competitive abilities. This provides a first step towards predicting the prevalence of intransitive competition in natural communities.
Conferences are ideal platforms for studying gender gaps in science because they are important cultural events that reflect barriers to women in academia. Here, we explored women\u2019s participation in ecology conferences by analyzing female representation, behavior, and personal experience at the 1st Meeting of the Iberian Society of Ecology (SIBECOL). The conference had 722 attendees, 576 contributions, and 27 scientific sessions. The gender of attendees and presenters was balanced (48/52% women/men), yet only 29% of the contributions had a woman as last author. Moreover, men presented most of the keynote talks (67%) and convened most of the sessions. Our results also showed that only 32% of the questions were asked by women, yet the number of questions raised by women increased when the speaker or the convener was a woman. Finally, the post-conference survey revealed that attendees had a good experience and did not perceive the event as a threatening context for women. Yet, differences in the responses between genders suggest that women tended to have a worse experience than their male counterparts. Although our results showed clear gender biases, most of the participants of the conference failed to detect it. Overall, we highlight the challenge of increasing women\u2019s scientific leadership, visibility and interaction in scientific conferences and we suggest several recommendations for creating inclusive meetings, thereby promoting equal opportunities for all participants.
Photoautotrophic soil cyanobacteria play essential ecological roles and are known to exhibit large changes in their diversity and abundance throughout early succession. However, much less is known about how and why soil cyanobacterial communities change as soil develops over centuries and millennia, and the effects that vegetation have on such communities.
We combined an extensive field survey, including 16 global soil chronosequences across contrasting ecosystems (from deserts to tropical forests), with molecular analyses to investigate how the diversity and abundance of photosynthetic and nonphotosynthetic soil cyanobacteria are affected by vegetation change during soil development, over time periods from hundreds to thousands of years.
We show that, in most chronosequences, the abundance, species richness and community composition of soil cyanobacteria are relatively stable as soil develops (from centuries to millennia). Regardless of soil age, forest chronosequences were consistently dominated by nonphotosynthetic cyanobacteria (Vampirovibrionia), while grasslands and shrublands were dominated by photosynthetic cyanobacteria. Chronosequences undergoing drastic vegetation shifts (e.g. transitions from grasslands to forests) experienced significant changes in the composition of soil cyanobacterial communities.
Our results advance our understanding of the ecology of cyanobacterial classes, and of the understudied nonphotosynthetic cyanobacteria in particular, and highlight the key role of vegetation as a major driver of their temporal dynamics as soil develops.
Research in limnology is nurtured by the work of many fascinating and passionate women, who have contributed enormously to our understanding of inland waters. Female limnologists have promoted and established the bases of our knowledge about inland waters and fostered the need of protecting the values of those ecosystems. However, on numerous occasions, their contribution to the advancement of limnology has not been duly recognized. Here, we review the presence of women in limnology through the history of the discipline: from the pioneers who contributed to the origins to present day' developments. We aim at visibilizing those scientists and establish them as role models. We also analyze in a simple and illustrative way the current situation of women in limnology, the scientific barriers they must deal with, and their future prospects. Multiple aspects fostering the visibility of a scientist, such as their presence in conferences, awards, or representation in societal or editorial boards show a significant gap, with none of those aspects showing a similar visibility of women and men in limnology. This article raises awareness of the obstacles that women in limnology faced and still face, and encourages to embrace models of leadership, scientific management, and assessment of research performance far from those commonly established.This article is categorized under:
Science of Water > Methods
Water and Life > Methods
Research in limnology is nurtured by the work of many fascinating and passionate women, who have contributed enormously to our understanding of inland waters. Female limnologists have promoted and established the bases of our knowledge about inland waters and fostered the need of protecting the values of those ecosystems. However, on numerous occasions, their contribution to the advancement of limnology has not been duly recognized. Here, we review the presence of women in limnology through the history of the discipline: from the pioneers who contributed to the origins to present day' developments. We aim at visibilizing those scientists and establish them as role models. We also analyze in a simple and illustrative way the current situation of women in limnology, the scientific barriers they must deal with, and their future prospects. Multiple aspects fostering the visibility of a scientist, such as their presence in conferences, awards, or representation in societal or editorial boards show a significant gap, with none of those aspects showing a similar visibility of women and men in limnology. This article raises awareness of the obstacles that women in limnology faced and still face, and encourages to embrace models of leadership, scientific management, and assessment of research performance far from those commonly established.This article is categorized under:
Science of Water > Methods
Water and Life > Methods
Despite their importance, how plant communities and soil microorganisms interact to determine the capacity of ecosystems to provide multiple functions simultaneously (multifunctionality) under climate change is poorly known. We conducted a common garden experiment using grassland species to evaluate how plant functional structure and soil microbial (bacteria and protists) diversity and abundance regulate soil multifunctionality responses to joint changes in plant species richness (one, three and six species) and simulated climate change (3\uffc2\uffb0C warming and 35% rainfall reduction). The effects of species richness and climate on soil multifunctionality were indirectly driven via changes in plant functional structure and their relationships with the abundance and diversity of soil bacteria and protists. More specifically, warming selected for the larger and most productive plant species, increasing the average size within communities and leading to reductions in functional plant diversity. These changes increased the total abundance of bacteria that, in turn, increased that of protists, ultimately promoting soil multifunctionality. Our work suggests that cascading effects between plant functional traits and the abundance of multitrophic soil organisms largely regulate the response of soil multifunctionality to simulated climate change, and ultimately provides novel experimental insights into the mechanisms underlying the effects of biodiversity and climate change on ecosystem functioning.Despite having key functions in terrestrial ecosystems, information on the dominant soil fungi and their ecological preferences at the global scale is lacking. To fill this knowledge gap, we surveyed 235 soils from across the globe. Our findings indicate that 83 phylotypes (<0.1% of the retrieved fungi), mostly belonging to wind dispersed, generalist Ascomycota, dominate soils globally. We identify patterns and ecological drivers of dominant soil fungal taxa occurrence, and present a map of their distribution in soils worldwide. Whole-genome comparisons with less dominant, generalist fungi point at a significantly higher number of genes related to stress-tolerance and resource uptake in the dominant fungi, suggesting that they might be better in colonising a wide range of environments. Our findings constitute a major advance in our understanding of the ecology of fungi, and have implications for the development of strategies to preserve them and the ecosystem functions they provide.Plant\uffe2\uff80\uff90associated microbes play essential roles in nutrient uptake and plant productivity, but their role in driving plant germination, a critical stage in the plant life cycle, is still poorly understood.
We used data from a large\uffe2\uff80\uff90scale, field\uffe2\uff80\uff90based soil seed bank study to examine the relationship among plants germinating from the seed bank and soil microbial community composition. We combined this with an experiment using 34 laboratory\uffe2\uff80\uff90based microcosms whereby sterile soil was inoculated with microbes from different field sites to examine how microbes affect the germination of nine plant species.
The community composition of plants in the soil seed bank was highly and significantly associated with bacterial and fungal community composition, with stronger correlations for soil beneath plant canopies. Microbes predicted a unique portion of the variation in the community composition of germinants after accounting for differences in environmental variables. The strongest correlations among microbes and plant functional traits included those related to perenniality, growth form, plant size, root type and seed shape. Our microcosm study showed that different plant species had their own associated germination microbiome, and most plant\uffe2\uff80\uff93microbe interactions were positive during germination.
Synthesis . Our study provides evidence for intimate relationships between plant and soil biodiversity during germination. Our work fills an important knowledge gap for plant\uffe2\uff80\uff93microbe interactions and reveals valuable insights into the shared natural history of plants and microbes in terrestrial ecosystems.