What is it about?
Spatial heterogeneity in physico-chemical properties and the highly protective nature of soils contribute to the exceptional complexity in microbial communities which is further augmented by the diverse array of environmental conditions and management practices. The relative contributions of specific microbial communities and processes are scale-dependent both spatially and temporally. In this concept paper, we organize what is known based on first principles of (Rules of Life) what is essential for microbial growth in terms of energy, major effectors that often limit growth, and other nutrients or physicochemical influences of their soil habitat.
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Why is it important?
This concept paper presents a summary matrix of what is known and to provide guidance on which environment and soil-related drivers are important for particular studies with special emphasis on a wide range of spatial and temporal scales and illustrate this with genomic and population (rRNA gene) data.
Perspectives
With the increasing use of sequencing based analysis of terrestrial microbiomes, attempts to correlate soil microbial community structures with their environment requires substantive, quality and consistent soil habitat data. Although, most omics-based microbial community studies present data on a list of habitat-based properties, there is no systematic collection of information known or suggested to influence the growth and/or activity of microbial communities, just a plethora of combinations that are mostly determined or collated based on individually observed and specific topics of interest. Such randomly selected soil and environmental characteristics generally seem to explain only a small part of the total variation. The usefulness and interoperability of the extensive microbiome data beyond its original location of the study, for identifying changes to community structure and trait responses, is dependent upon appropriate metadata collection.
Gupta Vadakattu
CSIRO
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Ranking environmental and edaphic attributes driving soil microbial community structure and activity with special attention to spatial and temporal scales, mLife, March 2024, Tsinghua University Press,
DOI: 10.1002/mlf2.12116.
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