Thermal traits govern the response of microbial community dynamics and ecosystem functioning to warming.

ABSTRACT: Understanding the ecological processes that underpin the dynamics of community turnover in response to environmental change is critical to predicting how warming will influence ecosystem functioning. Here, we quantify the effect of changing temperature on community composition and ecosystem functioning via the action of ecological selection on population-level thermal traits. To achieve this, we use microbes isolated from a network of geothermal streams in Iceland where in situ temperatures span 8-38°C within a single catchment. We first quantified variability in thermal tolerance between taxa, and then assembled synthetic communities along a broad thermal gradient to explore how temperature-driven selection on thermal tolerance traits shaped the emergent community structures

SUBMITTER: Garcia FC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9428465 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature