State Key Laboratory of Soil and Sustainable Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, China.
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China.
Environ Microbiol. 2021 Jan;23(1):391-404. doi: 10.1111/1462-2920.15326. Epub 2020 Nov 27.
Ecological assembly processes, by influencing community composition, determine ecosystem functions of microbiomes. However, debate remains on how stochastic versus deterministic assembly processes influence ecosystem functions such as carbon and nutrient cycling. Towards a better understanding, we investigated three types of agroecosystems (the upland, paddy, and flooded) that represent a gradient of stochastic versus deterministic assembly processes. Carbon and nutrient cycling multifunctionality, characterized by nine enzymes associated with soil carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous and sulfur cycling, was evaluated and then associated with microbial assembly processes and co-occurrence patterns of vital ecological groups. Our results suggest that strong deterministic processes favour microorganisms with convergent functions (as in the upland agroecosystem), while stochasticity-dominated processes lead to divergent functions (as in the flooded agroecosystem). To benefit agroecosystems services, we speculate that it is critical for a system to maintain balance between its stochastic and deterministic assembly processes (as in the paddy agroecosystem). By doing so, the system can preserve a diverse array of functional traits and also allow for particular traits to flourish. To further confirm this speculation, it is necessary to develop a systematic knowledge beyond merely characterizing general patterns towards the associations among community assembly, composition, and ecosystem functions.
生态组装过程通过影响群落组成，决定了微生物组的生态系统功能。然而，关于随机与确定性组装过程如何影响生态系统功能（如碳和养分循环）仍存在争议。为了更好地理解这一问题，我们研究了三种农业生态系统（旱地、水田和湿地），它们代表了随机与确定性组装过程的梯度变化。通过评估与土壤碳、氮、磷和硫循环相关的九种酶，评估了碳和养分循环多功能性，然后将其与微生物组装过程和关键生态群的共存模式相关联。我们的研究结果表明，强确定性过程有利于具有趋同功能的微生物（如旱地农业生态系统），而随机过程则导致功能的发散（如湿地农业生态系统）。为了使农业生态系统受益，我们推测，对于一个系统来说，保持其随机性和确定性组装过程之间的平衡至关重要（如水田农业生态系统）。通过这样做，系统可以保留多样化的功能特征，并允许特定特征蓬勃发展。为了进一步证实这一推测，有必要在社区组装、组成和生态系统功能之间的关联方面，超越仅仅描述一般模式，发展系统的知识。
