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Updated: Jun 23, 2026
09:49
Divergence of Root Microbiota in Different Habitats based on Weighted Correlation Networks
Published on: September 25, 2021
Phylogenetic coherence in microbiome composition across environmental gradients.
Biorxiv : the Preprint Server for Biology
|June 22, 2026
Summary
Microbial community assembly is shaped by evolution. Conserved traits drive responses to major environmental factors, while more recent evolutionary changes influence responses to other factors.
Area of Science:
- Microbial Ecology
- Evolutionary Biology
- Bioinformatics
Background:
- Environmental variables like depth and pH significantly influence microbial community composition across biomes.
- The role of individual taxa traits and their evolutionary conservation in shaping these patterns remains unclear.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how evolutionary conservation of traits influences microbial community assembly in response to environmental gradients.
- To differentiate between deeply conserved and evolutionarily labile traits in microbial community responses.
Main Methods:
- Utilized large-scale surveys of top soil and marine microbiomes.
- Employed canonical correlation analysis (CCA) to link environmental variation with compositional changes.
- Analyzed the phylogenetic signal across different canonical directions.
Main Results:
- The primary environmental gradient showed a strong phylogenetic signal, indicating similar responses among related taxa.
- Secondary environmental gradients exhibited weak or no phylogenetic structure.
- Community assembly appears to operate on two scales: conserved traits for major gradients and labile traits for others.
Conclusions:
- Deeply conserved traits govern microbial community reorganization along dominant environmental drivers.
- Evolutionarily labile traits explain additional environmentally driven compositional changes.
- A two-scale model integrating evolutionary history and trait lability explains microbial community assembly patterns.
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