ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2012
Cross-biome metagenomic analyses of soil microbial communities and their functional attributes.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 543 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
543 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Changes in soil microbial communities after exposure to neonicotinoids: A systematic review.Environmental microbiology reports · 2023Pooled it
- Coordination of quorum sensing with T3SS and T6SS: Bacterial strategies for combating fungal pathogens.Virulence · 2026Review
- The ecological context of enzymatic variation.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Can Organic Amendments Override Environmental Filtering of Soil Microbiomes? Evidence From 20 Years Old Agricultural Field Trials in Contrasting Tropical Sites.Global change biology · 2026Article
- Global microbial DNA signatures of temperature and nutrient limitation across ecosystems.Nature microbiology · 2026Article
- Analysis of Bacterial Diversity in Fresh Milk from Commercial Dairy Farms in Xinjiang Based on Metagenomic Sequencing.Veterinary sciences · 2026Article
- Beneath the surface: non-target effects of multiple pesticides on the soil microbiome in organic and conventional agricultural European fields.Environmental science and pollution research international · 2026Article
- Seasonal thawing of high Arctic soils triggers selective microbial growth and predation.mSystems · 2026Article
- Enhanced Yield ofPlants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Analysis of Quality Differences inFood science & nutrition · 2026Article
- Spatiotemporal Dynamics of the Relative Abundance of Soil Nutrient-Degrading Enzyme-Encoding Genes Across Continental US Ecoregions.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Metagenomic Insights into Regional Differences in the Rhizosphere Microbial Communities ofMicroorganisms · 2026Article
- Cross-infection by multiple soil-borne pathogens alters the physicochemical properties and microbial community structure of tobacco rhizosphere soil.BMC microbiology · 2026Article
- Nutrient Supply Gradients Modulate Cultivation-Driven Restructuring of Microbial Communities in Desert Soils.Biology · 2026Article
- Metagenomic Profiling of Soil Microbiomes and Resistomes in Arid Ecosystems of Kuwait.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Ecosystem-Centered Robot Design: Toward Ecoresorbable Sustainability Robots (ESRs).Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Review
- Enterobacter Species: Opportunistic Human and Plant Pathogens With Plant-Beneficial Traits.Molecular plant pathology · 2026Review
- Terracing influences soil microbial assembly in citrus orchards: stochastic processes dominate community dynamics in a karst sloping land.BMC microbiology · 2026Article
- Plasmids as persistent genetic reservoirs of bacterial defense systems in wastewater treatment.Microbiome · 2026Article
- Effects of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus on the functional bacteria assembly in promoting plant growth and nutrient acquisition in karst soil.BMC microbiology · 2026Article
483 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
For centuries ecologists have studied how the diversity and functional traits of plant and animal communities vary across biomes. In contrast, we have only just begun exploring similar questions for soil microbial communities despite soil microbes being the dominant engines of biogeochemical cycles and a major pool of living biomass in terrestrial ecosystems. We used metagenomic sequencing to compare the composition and functional attributes of 16 soil microbial communities collected from cold deserts, hot deserts, forests, grasslands, and tundra. Those communities found in plant-free cold desert soils typically had the lowest levels of functional diversity (diversity of protein-coding gene categories) and the lowest levels of phylogenetic and taxonomic diversity. Across all soils, functional beta diversity was strongly correlated with taxonomic and phylogenetic beta diversity; the desert microbial communities were clearly distinct from the nondesert communities regardless of the metric used. The desert communities had higher relative abundances of genes associated with osmoregulation and dormancy, but lower relative abundances of genes associated with nutrient cycling and the catabolism of plant-derived organic compounds. Antibiotic resistance genes were consistently threefold less abundant in the desert soils than in the nondesert soils, suggesting that abiotic conditions, not competitive interactions, are more important in shaping the desert microbial communities. As the most comprehensive survey of soil taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional diversity to date, this study demonstrates that metagenomic approaches can be used to build a predictive understanding of how microbial diversity and function vary across terrestrial biomes.
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