Environmental fluctuations reshape an unexpected diversity-disturbance relationship in a microbial community.

ABSTRACT: Environmental disturbances have long been theorized to play a significant role in shaping the diversity and composition of ecosystems. However, an inability to specify the characteristics of a disturbance experimentally has produced an inconsistent picture of diversity-disturbance relationships (DDRs). Here, using a high-throughput programmable culture system, we subjected a soil-derived bacterial community to dilution disturbance profiles with different intensities (mean dilution rates), applied either constantly or with fluctuations of different frequencies. We observed an unexpected U-shaped relationship between community diversity and disturbance intensity in the absence of fluctuations. Adding fluctuations increased community diversity and erased the U-shape. All our results are well-

SUBMITTER: Mancuso CP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8460265 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature