Abstract
Predicting ecosystem functioning requires an understanding of the mechanisms that drive microbial community assembly. Many studies have explored microbial diversity extensively and environmental factors are thought to be the principal drivers of community composition. Community assembly is, however, also influenced by past conditions that might affect present-day assemblages. Historical events, called legacy effects or historical contingencies, remain poorly studied in the sea and their impact on the functioning of the communities is not known. We tested the influence, if any, of historical contingencies on contemporary community assembly and functions in a marine ecosystem. To do so, we verified if different inoculum communities colonizing the same substrate led to communities with different compositions. We inoculated wood with sea water microbes from different marine environments that differ in ecological and evolutionary history. Using 16S rRNA and metagenomic sequencing, it was demonstrated that historical contingencies change the composition and potential metabolisms of contemporary communities. The effect of historical events was transient, dominated by environmental selection as, over time, species sorting was a more important driver of community assembly. Our study shows not only that historical contingencies affect marine ecosystems but takes the analysis a step further by characterizing this effect as strong but transient.
Highlights
Predicting ecosystem functioning requires an understanding of the mechanisms that drive microbial community assembly
The effects of past historical events on contemporary communities are called legacy effects or historical contingencies[11]. Such effects may be due to past environmental conditions that shaped the communities, but they may result from limited dispersal in the past that influences the composition of communities[12], or they may be priority effects resulting from the order or timing in which different species joined a community[11]
Our experiment whose objective was to test the effect of historical contingencies on marine microbial assemblies, showed that history, or the legacy effect, significantly influenced microbial community assembly
Summary
Predicting ecosystem functioning requires an understanding of the mechanisms that drive microbial community assembly. The effects of past historical events on contemporary communities are called legacy effects or historical contingencies[11] Such effects may be due to past environmental conditions that shaped the communities, but they may result from limited dispersal in the past that influences the composition of communities[12], or they may be priority effects resulting from the order or timing in which different species joined a community[11]. Due to stark and stable environmental dissimilarities between these depths, the inoculation communities have been shaped by different evolutionary and ecological events whose legacies have been maintained In this experiment, the wood represented a well-defined habitat that was open to colonization by marine species marked by historical contingencies. We monitored the diversity of microbial communities in the wood over time using 16S rRNA sequencing, described their metabolic potential using metagenomic sequencing, and measured the growth of microbial mats on the wood as an indicator of microbial activity
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