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Assessing critical thresholds in terrestrial microbiomes

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Critical thresholds are abrupt changes in ecosystems triggered by environmental disturbances, which can be used to assess resilience and vulnerability. Here, we propose how a trait-based approach could be used to harness the predictive power of microbial dynamics to manage ecosystem response to environmental changes.

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Fig. 1: System shifts, resilience and multiple disturbances.
Fig. 2: Microbial trait shifts and feedback mechanisms.

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Acknowledgements

E.E. and B.K.S. are supported by the Australian Research Council (DE210101822; DP 230101448). C.C. is supported by the European Commission under the H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions grant agreement no. 702057 (DRYLIFE). M.D.-B. acknowledges support from TED2021-130908B-C41/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/Unión Europea NextGenerationEU/PRTR and from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation for the I+D+i project PID2020-115813RA-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University, Penrith, New South Wales, Australia

    Eleonora Egidi & Brajesh K. Singh

  2. Global Centre for Land-Based Innovation, Western Sydney University, Penrith, New South Wales, Australia

    Eleonora Egidi & Brajesh K. Singh

  3. Department of Ecological and Biological Sciences, University of Tuscia, Viterbo, Italy

    Claudia Coleine

  4. Laboratorio de Biodiversidad y Funcionamiento Ecosistémico, Instituto de Recursos Naturales y Agrobiología de Sevilla (IRNAS), CSIC, Seville, Spain

    Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo

Authors
  1. Eleonora Egidi
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  2. Claudia Coleine
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  3. Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo
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  4. Brajesh K. Singh
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Correspondence to Eleonora Egidi.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Microbiology thanks Michael Schloter and Karen Johnson for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Egidi, E., Coleine, C., Delgado-Baquerizo, M. et al. Assessing critical thresholds in terrestrial microbiomes. Nat Microbiol 8, 2230–2233 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-023-01536-2

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