The impact of failure: unsuccessful bacterial invasions steer the soil microbial community away from the invader's niche.

ABSTRACT: Although many environments like soils are constantly subjected to invasion by alien microbes, invaders usually fail to succeed, succumbing to the robust diversity often found in nature. So far, only successful invasions have been explored, and it remains unknown to what extent an unsuccessful invasion can impact resident communities. Here we hypothesized that unsuccessful invasions can cause impacts to soil functioning by decreasing the diversity and niche breadth of resident bacterial communities, which could cause shifts to community composition and niche structure-an effect that is likely exacerbated when diversity is compromised. To examine this question, diversity gradients of soil microbial communities were subjected to invasion by the frequent, yet oft-unsuccessful soil invader, Esc

SUBMITTER: Mallon CA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5864238 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature