Dormancy dampens the microbial distance-decay relationship

Much of Earth's biodiversity has the capacity to engage in dormancy, a reversible state of reduced metabolic activity. By increasing resilience to unfavourable conditions, dormancy leads to the accumulation of 'seed banks'. These reservoirs of genetic and phenotypic diversity should diminish the strength of environmental filtering and increase rates of dispersal. Although prevalent among single-celled organisms, evidence that dormancy influences patterns of microbial biogeography is lacking. We constructed geographical and environmental distance-decay relationships (DDRs) for the total (DNA) and active (RNA) portions of bacterial communities in a regional-scale 16S rRNA survey of forested ponds in Indiana, USA. As predicted, total communities harboured greater diversity and exhibited weaker DDRs than active communities. These observations were robust to random resampling and different community metrics. To evaluate the processes underlying the biogeographic patterns, we developed a platform of mechanistic models that used the geographical coordinates and environmental characteristics of our study system. Based on more than 10⁶ simulations, our models approximated the empirical DDRs when there was strong environmental filtering along with the presence of long-lived seed banks. By contrast, the inclusion of dispersal generally decreased model performance. Together, our findings support recent theoretical predictions that seed banks can influence the biogeographic patterns of microbial communities. This article is part of the theme issue 'Conceptual challenges in microbial community ecology'.