Environmental connectivity controls diversity in soil microbial communities.

ABSTRACT: Interspecific interactions are thought to govern the stability and functioning of microbial communities, but the influence of the spatial environment and its structural connectivity on the potential of such interactions to unfold remain largely unknown. Here we studied the effects on community growth and microbial diversity as a function of environmental connectivity, where we define environmental connectivity as the degree of habitat fragmentation preventing microbial cells from living together. We quantitatively compared growth of a naturally-derived high microbial diversity community from soil in a completely mixed liquid suspension (high connectivity) to growth in a massively fragmented and poorly connected environment (low connectivity). The low connectivity environment consisted of h

SUBMITTER: Dubey M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8062517 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature