![]() A large variation in the abundance of each species in species-rich communities is likely to stabilize community-level function by compensating for environmental fluctuations, and is thought to be the underlying mechanism of the positive correlations, ,. temporal variation in productivity is smaller in a species-rich community than in a species-poor community) have often been reported in previous studies. Positive correlations in diversity–stability relationships (e.g. With respect to the diversity–stability relationship, aboveground plant communities have been most intensively studied, ,, while some studies have focused on aquatic ecosystems. In recent decades, how diversity influences the stability of ecosystem functioning has become an increasingly important and urgent issue because of the increasing loss of biodiversity arising as a result of intensive human activities. Stability can be defined as how little the rate of a concerned process varied over an externally imposed change or time period, although the term “stability” is a metaconcept that covers a wide range of different properties. ![]() Therefore, little variation in the decomposition activity over an externally imposed change (or time period) would lead to the stable functioning of aboveground compartments of an ecosystem. Because the performance of aboveground compartments (e.g., plants) in terrestrial ecosystems depend on nutrients that are mineralized by the decomposition process, changes in the decomposition activity of soil microbial communities have significant impacts on the dynamics of those aboveground compartments. Soil microbial communities fundamentally drive decomposition processes by secreting extracellular enzymes, thereby playing potentially important roles in greenhouse gas emission, plant-soil interactions, nutrient cycling, and climate-ecosystem feedbacks,. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.įunding: This study is financially supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS grant number 21-1526, 23-586) and the Excellent Young Researcher Overseas Visit Program by JSPS. Received: AugAccepted: OctoPublished: November 18, 2013Ĭopyright: © 2013 Ushio et al. PLoS ONE 8(11):Įditor: Brett Neilan, University of New South Wales, Australia Changes in substrate quality, which could be induced by climate change, have impacts on decomposition process and carbon dioxide emission from soils, but such impacts may be attenuated by the functional diversity of soil microbial communities.Ĭitation: Ushio M, Miki T, Balser TC (2013) A Coexisting Fungal-Bacterial Community Stabilizes Soil Decomposition Activity in a Microcosm Experiment. ![]() Our results also imply that the functional/taxonomic diversity and community ecology of soil microbes should be incorporated into the context of climate–ecosystem feedbacks. Our experiment demonstrated that the previously found positive diversity–stability relationship could also be valid in the soil microbial community. Flexible changes in the microbial community composition and/or physiological state in the coexisting community against changes in substrate quality, as inferred by the soil lipid profile, may be the mechanism underlying this positive diversity–stability relationship. We found that soil respiration rates and degradation enzyme activities by a coexisting fungal and bacterial community (a taxonomically diverse community) are more stable against changes in substrate quality (plant leaf materials) than those of a fungi-dominated or a bacteria-dominated community (less diverse community). In this study, we conducted a microcosm experiment to investigate the relationship between microbial diversity and stability of soil decomposition activities against changes in decomposition substrate quality by manipulating microbial community using selective biocides. ![]() However, only limited empirical investigations of the diversity–stability relationship in soil microbial communities have been undertaken, despite the fundamental role of microbial communities in driving carbon and nutrient cycling in terrestrial ecosystems. How diversity influences the stability of a community function is a major question in ecology. ![]()
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