ArticleThe ISME journal2016
Decreases in average bacterial community rRNA operon copy number during succession.
Article in The ISME journal, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 69 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
69 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Consistent changes in the taxonomic structure and functional attributes of bacterial communities during primary succession.The ISME journal · 2018Pooled it
- Pooled it
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- Bacterial necromass recycling promotes diversity maintenance in bacterial communities via resource partitioning.Nature ecology & evolution · 2026Article
- Carbon regime structures functional trait trajectories during primary succession in microorganisms.The ISME journal · 2026Article
- Eutrophication Reshapes Microbial Communities and Life-History Strategies in the Riverine Ecosystems.Environmental microbiology reports · 2025Article
- Three eruptions at the Fagradalsfjall Volcano in Iceland show rapid and predictable microbial community establishment.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Counting soil microbial communities: the impact of qPCR platform and mastermix on accuracy and precision.FEMS microbiology ecology · 2025Article
- Community assembly following disturbance in batch anaerobic digesters displays highly reproducible secondary succession and a shifting stochastic-deterministic balance.Frontiers in microbiomes · 2025Article
- Eutrophication shifts microbial communities and life-history strategies in the Yangtze River Estuary.Frontiers in microbiology · 2025Article
- Warming stimulates cellulose decomposition by recruiting phylogenetically diverse but functionally similar microorganisms.ISME communications · 2025Article
- Host dispersal relaxes selective pressures in rafting microbiomes and triggers successional changes.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Microbial and mineral interactions decouple litter quality from soil organic matter formation.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Sewage sludge fertilization affects microbial community structure and its resistome in agricultural soils.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Antarctic Soils Select Copiotroph-Dominated Bacteria.Microorganisms · 2024Article
- Microbial impact on initial soil formation in arid and semiarid environments under simulated climate change.Frontiers in microbiology · 2024Article
- Experimentally determined traits shape bacterial community composition one and five years following wildfire.Nature ecology & evolution · 2023Article
9 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Trait-based studies can help clarify the mechanisms driving patterns of microbial community assembly and coexistence. Here, we use a trait-based approach to explore the importance of rRNA operon copy number in microbial succession, building on prior evidence that organisms with higher copy numbers respond more rapidly to nutrient inputs. We set flasks of heterotrophic media into the environment and examined bacterial community assembly at seven time points. Communities were arrayed along a geographic gradient to introduce stochasticity via dispersal processes and were analyzed using 16 S rRNA gene pyrosequencing, and rRNA operon copy number was modeled using ancestral trait reconstruction. We found that taxonomic composition was similar between communities at the beginning of the experiment and then diverged through time; as well, phylogenetic clustering within communities decreased over time. The average rRNA operon copy number decreased over the experiment, and variance in rRNA operon copy number was lowest both early and late in succession. We then analyzed bacterial community data from other soil and sediment primary and secondary successional sequences from three markedly different ecosystem types. Our results demonstrate that decreases in average copy number are a consistent feature of communities across various drivers of ecological succession. Importantly, our work supports the scaling of the copy number trait over multiple levels of biological organization, ranging from cells to populations and communities, with implications for both microbial ecology and evolution.
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