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Implications of Soil Microbial Community Assembly for Ecosystem Restoration: Patterns, Process, and Potential

  • Environmental Microbiology
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Abstract

While it is now widely accepted that microorganisms provide essential functions in restoration ecology, the nature of relationships between microbial community assembly and ecosystem recovery remains unclear. There has been a longstanding challenge to decipher whether microorganisms facilitate or simply follow ecosystem recovery, and evidence for each is mixed at best. We propose that understanding microbial community assembly processes is critical to understanding the role of microorganisms during ecosystem restoration and thus optimizing management strategies. We examine how the connection between environment, community structure, and function is fundamentally underpinned by the processes governing community assembly of these microbial communities. We review important factors to consider in evaluating microbial community structure in the context of ecosystem recovery as revealed in studies of microbial succession: (1) variation in community assembly processes, (2) linkages to ecosystem function, and (3) measurable microbial community attributes. We seek to empower restoration ecology with microbial assembly and successional understandings that can generate actionable insights and vital contexts for ecosystem restoration efforts.

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Funding

This research was supported by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). PNNL is operated by Battelle Memorial Institute for the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC05-76RL01830.

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  1. Earth and Biological Sciences Directorate, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA

    Emily B. Graham

  2. School of Biological Sciences, Washington State University, Richland, WA, USA

    Emily B. Graham

  3. Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Joseph E. Knelman

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  1. Emily B. Graham
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Graham, E.B., Knelman, J.E. Implications of Soil Microbial Community Assembly for Ecosystem Restoration: Patterns, Process, and Potential. Microb Ecol 85, 809–819 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-022-02155-w

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