Morales-Fonseca Diana, Barantal Sandra, Buscot François, Hättenschwiler Stephan, Milcu Alexandru, Nahmani Johanne, Gritti Emmanuel S, Goldmann Kezia, Prada-Salcedo Luis Daniel
Department of Soil Ecology, UFZ-Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Halle (Saale), Germany.
Faculty of Engineering, Department Chemical Engineering, Universidad de América, Bogotá, Colombia.
Front Microbiol. 2025 Jun 13;16:1597272. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1597272. eCollection 2025.
The impacts of climate change, particularly the increasing frequency and intensity of severe droughts, pose significant threats to terrestrial ecosystems. To ensure the maintenance of critical ecosystem functions under these conditions, it is essential to better understand the interactions between different soil communities. However, the extent to which drought-induced changes in microbial communities are influenced by soil biodiversity, especially the functional diversity of soil macrofauna, remains poorly understood. In this study, we investigated how microbial communities respond to contrasting levels of macrofauna functional diversity and to more severe and prolonged drought in a Mediterranean forest ecosystem, all under fully controlled conditions. We conducted a two-year mesocosm experiment using 16 large mesocosms at the Montpellier European Ecotron, employing 16S amplicon sequencing and inferred functional gene annotations to assess microbial responses. Our results revealed that the relative abundance of Gram-positive bacterial communities increased compared to Gram-negative ones in response to drought. Furthermore, higher levels of macrofauna functional diversity appeared to help stabilize microbial diversity and community composition during periods of severe and prolonged drought. The resilience of microbial communities to drought was further reflected by the enrichment of drought-tolerant genes in specific bacterial taxa. Overall, these findings highlight the importance of preserving soil biodiversity as a means to mitigate the effects of future droughts on soil functions and to enhance the resilience of terrestrial ecosystems in the face of ongoing climate change.
气候变化的影响，尤其是严重干旱发生频率和强度的增加，对陆地生态系统构成了重大威胁。为确保在这些条件下关键生态系统功能得以维持，更好地理解不同土壤群落之间的相互作用至关重要。然而，干旱引起的微生物群落变化受土壤生物多样性，特别是土壤大型动物功能多样性影响的程度，仍知之甚少。在本研究中，我们在完全可控的条件下，调查了地中海森林生态系统中微生物群落如何响应大型动物功能多样性的不同水平以及更严重和持久的干旱。我们在蒙彼利埃欧洲生态otron使用16个大型围隔进行了为期两年的围隔实验，采用16S扩增子测序和推断的功能基因注释来评估微生物的反应。我们的结果表明，干旱导致革兰氏阳性细菌群落的相对丰度相对于革兰氏阴性细菌群落有所增加。此外，更高水平的大型动物功能多样性似乎有助于在严重和持久干旱期间稳定微生物多样性和群落组成。特定细菌类群中耐旱基因的富集进一步反映了微生物群落对干旱的恢复力。总体而言，这些发现凸显了保护土壤生物多样性的重要性，以此作为减轻未来干旱对土壤功能影响以及增强陆地生态系统在持续气候变化面前恢复力的一种手段。
