ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2021
Plant ecological genomics at the limits of life in the Atacama Desert.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 41 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
41 citing papers in PubMed.
- Harnessing synthetic microbial communities for desert vegetation restoration.Synthetic and systems biotechnology · 2027Review
- A 'Genome-First' Framework for Next-Generation Bioinputs: From Functional Mining to Rational Synthetic Microbial Communities.Environmental microbiology · 2026Review
- Ecosystem-Centered Robot Design: Toward Ecoresorbable Sustainability Robots (ESRs).Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Review
- On the Limits of Alpine Plants: A Systematic Review of the Factors Behind Species' Elevational Range Limits.Ecology and evolution · 2026Review
- The root system of Pappostipa frigida as a hotspot of active bacterial communities in the Andean steppe of the Atacama desert.Environmental microbiome · 2026Article
- Geographic distribution of nematodes in the Atacama is associated with elevation, climate gradients and parthenogenesis.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Vulnerable microbial communities in Atacama-Altiplano wetlands: modern analogs of ancient ecosystems with implications for sustainability and conservation.FEMS microbes · 2026Review
- Modeling the emergent metabolic potential of soil microbiomes in Atacama landscapes.Environmental microbiome · 2025Article
- Developmentally regulated genes drive phylogenomic splits in ovule evolution.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Unearthing the hidden organ: vital role of the root in drought tolerance of plants.Plant molecular biology · 2025Review
- Advancing ecological and evolutionary research in Arabidopsis: Extending insights into model and nonmodel plants.The Plant cell · 2025Review
- From cultivation challenges of Acidobacteriota to biotechnological promises - unveiling what is needed to fully harness their potential.World journal of microbiology & biotechnology · 2025Review
- Genetic Diversity and Conservation ofPlants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Ironing out the conflicts: iron supplementation reduces negatives bacterial interactions in the rhizosphere of an Atacama-endemic perennial grass.Environmental microbiome · 2025Article
- Phenological and Fungal Interactions ofPlants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Article
- Lessons from Extremophiles: Functional Adaptations and Genomic Innovations across the Eukaryotic Tree of Life.Genome biology and evolution · 2024Article
- Alpine Extremophytes in Evolutionary Turmoil: Complex Diversification Patterns and Demographic Responses of a Halophilic Grass in a Central Asian Biodiversity Hotspot.Systematic biology · 2024Article
- Article
- Seed or soil: Tracing back the plant mycobiota primary sources.Environmental microbiology reports · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
27 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The Atacama Desert in Chile-hyperarid and with high-ultraviolet irradiance levels-is one of the harshest environments on Earth. Yet, dozens of species grow there, including Atacama-endemic plants. Herein, we establish the Talabre-Lejía transect (TLT) in the Atacama as an unparalleled natural laboratory to study plant adaptation to extreme environmental conditions. We characterized climate, soil, plant, and soil-microbe diversity at 22 sites (every 100 m of altitude) along the TLT over a 10-y period. We quantified drought, nutrient deficiencies, large diurnal temperature oscillations, and pH gradients that define three distinct vegetational belts along the altitudinal cline. We deep-sequenced transcriptomes of 32 dominant plant species spanning the major plant clades, and assessed soil microbes by metabarcoding sequencing. The top-expressed genes in the 32 Atacama species are enriched in stress responses, metabolism, and energy production. Moreover, their root-associated soils are enriched in growth-promoting bacteria, including nitrogen fixers. To identify genes associated with plant adaptation to harsh environments, we compared 32 Atacama species with the 32 closest sequenced species, comprising 70 taxa and 1,686,950 proteins. To perform phylogenomic reconstruction, we concatenated 15,972 ortholog groups into a supermatrix of 8,599,764 amino acids. Using two codon-based methods, we identified 265 candidate positively selected genes (PSGs) in the Atacama plants, 64% of which are located in Pfam domains, supporting their functional relevance. For 59/184 PSGs with an
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.