Macroecological distributions of gene variants highlight the functional organization of soil microbial systems.

ABSTRACT: The recent application of macroecological tools and concepts has made it possible to identify consistent patterns in the distribution of microbial biodiversity, which greatly improved our understanding of the microbial world at large scales. However, the distribution of microbial functions remains largely uncharted from the macroecological point of view. Here, we used macroecological models to examine how the genes encoding the functional capabilities of microorganisms are distributed within and across soil systems. Models built using functional gene array data from 818 soil microbial communities showed that the occupancy-frequency distributions of genes were bimodal in every studied site, and that their rank-abundance distributions were best described by a lognormal model. In addition, th

SUBMITTER: Escalas A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8857198 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature