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Carbon regime structures functional trait trajectories during primary succession in microorganisms
Grace A Cagle1, Benjamin Baiser2, Jessica R Bernardin3
1Department of Soil and Environmental Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, United States.
The ISME Journal
|May 23, 2026
Summary
Microbial communities in primary succession show predictable functional shifts in autotrophic systems, transitioning from high rRNA operon copy number (RRN) to larger genomes and lower RRN. Heterotrophic systems display more variable microbial succession patterns.
Area of Science:
- Ecology
- Microbial Ecology
- Genomics
Background:
- Primary succession is crucial for ecosystem development, but microbial functional shifts remain unclear.
- Understanding microbial community dynamics during succession is key to predicting ecosystem trajectories.
Purpose of the Study:
- To systematically review functional primary succession in microorganisms.
- To analyze microbial functional richness, rRNA operon copy number (RRN), and average genome size (AGS) during succession.
- To explore microbial life-history strategies using the yield-acquisition-stress (Y-A-S) framework.
Main Methods:
- Systematic literature review of microbial primary succession.
- Application of a consistent metagenomic pipeline for data analysis.
- Functional gene annotation and topic modeling for trait analysis.
Main Results:
- Autotrophic systems showed decreased RRN and increased AGS during succession, indicating a shift towards larger genomes and greater functional versatility.
- Heterotrophic systems exhibited variable functional trajectories, likely due to differing organic input dynamics.
- Early successional stages were enriched in stress-tolerance genes, with subsequent shifts in microbial strategies.
Conclusions:
- Microbial successional trajectories are influenced by resource availability and system type (autotrophic vs. heterotrophic).
- RRN and AGS shifts are broadly conserved in autotrophic systems, suggesting predictable microbial community assembly.
- Life-history strategies during succession are context-dependent, shaped by resource dynamics.
Keywords:
bacterial colonizationgenome sizelife-history strategyprimary successionrRNA copy numbertraitsMore Related Videos
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