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Coordination and divergence in community assembly processes across co-occurring microbial groups separated by cell
Xinghao Li1,2, James C Stegen3, Yuhe Yu2
1Hubei Key Laboratory of Regional Development and Environmental Response, Hubei Engineering Research Center for Rural Drinking Water Safety, Hubei University, Wuhan, China.
Frontiers in Microbiology
|June 19, 2023
Summary
Body size influences microbial community structure. Micro-eukaryotes, unlike smaller ones, share assembly patterns with prokaryotes, suggesting cell size impacts ecological processes in aquatic microbial food webs.
Area of Science:
- Ecology
- Microbiology
- Limnology
Background:
- Body size is a key factor structuring ecological communities and food webs.
- The influence of body size on microbial community assembly processes remains largely unexplored.
- Understanding these processes is crucial for predicting microbial ecosystem dynamics.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the role of body size in shaping microbial eukaryote and prokaryote communities.
- To disentangle the ecological assembly processes governing different microbial size classes.
- To compare assembly patterns between microbial eukaryotes and prokaryotes based on cell size.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of microbial diversity in China's largest urban lake.
- Utilized 16S and 18S amplicon sequencing for microbial eukaryotes and prokaryotes.
- Differentiated between pico/nano-eukaryotes (0.22–20 μm) and micro-eukaryotes (20–200 μm).
Main Results:
- Pico/nano- and micro-eukaryotes exhibited distinct community compositions and assembly processes despite similar diversity.
- Micro-eukaryote assembly was influenced by environmental selection (local) and dispersal limitation (regional).
- Micro-eukaryotes, not pico/nano-eukaryotes, shared assembly patterns with prokaryotes, indicating size-dependent coupling.
Conclusions:
- Eukaryote microbial assembly processes can be coupled or decoupled from prokaryotes, influenced by eukaryote cell size.
- Cell size is a significant factor, but other drivers may also affect assembly process coupling.
- Size-structured patterns in microbial communities offer predictive power for food web shifts under disturbance.
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