ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2020
The ecology of heterogeneity: soil bacterial communities and C dynamics.
Article in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 35 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
35 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- A Systematic Review on the Continuous Cropping Obstacles and Control Strategies in Medicinal Plants.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Pooled it
- Metabolite-Resolved Validation of Bacterial Organophosphate Transformation in Soil: A Critical Review of Selected Organophosphate Case Studies.Microorganisms · 2026Review
- Genomic characteristics and geographical distribution of uncultivated soil prokaryotes.BMC genomics · 2026Article
- Morphological plasticity of endophytic Chitinophaga pinensis.Antonie van Leeuwenhoek · 2026Article
- Synthetic Biology of Plants and Microbes for Agriculture, Environment, and Future Applications.Chemical reviews · 2026Review
- Synthetic soils for ecological and synthetic biology applications.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2026Review
- Model substrate particles uncover dynamics of microbial communities associated with particulate organic matter decomposition in soil.ISME communications · 2026Article
- Biochar reshapes soil bacterial community composition and survival strategies: a meta-analysis revealing trade-offs between microbial stability and functional complexity.Biology and fertility of soils · 2026Article
- Localised effects of sparse natural tree colonisation on soil physicochemical properties.Trees (Berlin, Germany : West) · 2026Article
- Multidimensional sampling framework reveals plant-driven effects on microbial spatial heterogeneity and niche differentiation in a natural ecosystem.Environmental microbiome · 2025Article
- Microbial drivers of root plasticity.The New phytologist · 2025Review
- Streptomyces venezuelae uses secreted chitinases and a designated ABC transporter to support the competitive saprophytic catabolism of chitin.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- Multi-omics of a model bacterial consortium deciphers details of chitin decomposition in soil.mBio · 2025Article
- Aerospace Mutagenized Tea Tree Increases Rhizospheric Microorganisms, Enhances Nutrient Conversion Capacity and Promotes Growth.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Effects of compost amendments and experimental drought on grassland soil microbial communities.FEMS microbiology letters · 2025Article
- New perspectives under heterogeneity: mechanism of nutrient heterogeneity on Cd-induced hormesis of soil respiration.Frontiers in microbiology · 2025Article
- Microbial trait multifunctionality drives soil organic matter formation potential.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Bacteria face trade-offs in the decomposition of complex biopolymers.PLoS computational biology · 2024Article
- Composition and metabolism of microbial communities in soil pores.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Lineage-specific evolution ofApplied and environmental microbiology · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Heterogeneity is a fundamental property of soil that is often overlooked in microbial ecology. Although it is generally accepted that the heterogeneity of soil underpins the emergence and maintenance of microbial diversity, the profound and far-reaching consequences that heterogeneity can have on many aspects of microbial ecology and activity have yet to be fully apprehended and have not been fully integrated into our understanding of microbial functioning. In this contribution we first discuss how the heterogeneity of the soil microbial environment, and the consequent uncertainty associated with acquiring resources, may have affected how microbial metabolism, motility and interactions evolved and, ultimately, the overall microbial activity that is represented in ecosystem models, such as heterotrophic decomposition or respiration. We then present an analysis of predicted metabolic pathways for soil bacteria, obtained from the MetaCyc pathway/genome database collection (https://metacyc.org/). The analysis suggests that while there is a relationship between phylogenic affiliation and the catabolic range of soil bacterial taxa, there does not appear to be a trade-off between the 16S rRNA gene copy number, taken as a proxy of potential growth rate, of bacterial strains and the range of substrates that can be used. Finally, we present a simple, spatially explicit model that can be used to understand how the interactions between decomposers and environmental heterogeneity affect the bacterial decomposition of organic matter, suggesting that environmental heterogeneity might have important consequences on the variability of this process. This article is part of the theme issue 'Conceptual challenges in microbial community ecology'.
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