Stochastic and deterministic assembly processes in subsurface microbial communities.

ABSTRACT: A major goal of microbial community ecology is to understand the forces that structure community composition. Deterministic selection by specific environmental factors is sometimes important, but in other cases stochastic or ecologically neutral processes dominate. Lacking is a unified conceptual framework aiming to understand why deterministic processes dominate in some contexts but not others. Here we work toward such a framework. By testing predictions derived from general ecological theory we aim to uncover factors that govern the relative influences of deterministic and stochastic processes. We couple spatiotemporal data on subsurface microbial communities and environmental parameters with metrics and null models of within and between community phylogenetic composition. Testing for ph

SUBMITTER: Stegen JC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3498916 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature