Distinguishing relative specialist and generalist species in the fossil record

Wilson, Brent; Hayek, Lee‐Ann C.

doi:10.1016/j.marmicro.2015.07.001

Cited by 36 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…The percentage of consumers was reasonably similar in all three networks, while the ratio of phototrophs increased (from 5.0 to 10.6%) during the primary succession of tailings. Generalist species have wider fundamental niches than specialist species, leading to the strong competitiveness of generalists . The largest generalists of phototrophic protists were observed in MS followed by BC and BL (Figure ).…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 91%

Primary Succession Changes the Composition and Functioning of the Protist Community on Mine Tailings, Especially Phototrophic Protists

Gao

Sun

et al. 2022

ACS Environ. Au

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Primary succession in mine tailings is a prerequisite for tailing vegetation. Microorganisms, including bacteria, fungi, and protists, play an important role in this process in the driving force for improving the nutritional status. Compared to bacteria and fungi, protist populations have rarely been investigated regarding their role in mine tailings, especially for those inhabiting tailings associated with primary succession. Protists are the primary consumers of fungi and bacteria, and their predatory actions promote the release of nutrients immobilized in the microbial biomass, as well as the uptake and turnover of nutrients, affecting the functions of the wider ecosystems. In this study, three different types of mine tailings associated with three successional stages (original tailings, biological crusts, and Miscanthus sinensis grasslands) were selected to characterize the protistan community diversity, structure, and function during primary succession. Some members classified as consumers dominated the network of microbial communities in the tailings, especially in the original bare land tailings. The keystone phototrophs of Chlorophyceae and Trebouxiophyceae showed the highest relative abundance in the biological crusts and grassland rhizosphere, respectively. In addition, the co-occurrences between protist and bacterial taxa demonstrated that the proportion of protistan phototrophs gradually increased during primary succession. Further, the metagenomic analysis of protistan metabolic potential showed that abundances of many functional genes associated with photosynthesis increased during the primary succession of tailings. Overall, these results suggest that the primary succession of mine tailings drives the changes observed in the protistan community, and in turn, the protistan phototrophs facilitate the primary succession of tailings. This research offers an initial insight into the changes in biodiversity, structure, and function of the protistan community during ecological succession on tailings.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 91%

Primary Succession Changes the Composition and Functioning of the Protist Community on Mine Tailings, Especially Phototrophic Protists

Gao

Sun

et al. 2022

ACS Environ. Au

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“…To understand the ecological niche of each ASV, all ASVs in the respective AS and AD systems were classified as either generalist, transient, or specialist taxa based on occurrence frequency. ASVs with an estimated observed occurrence above or below the 95% confidence interval were classified as generalist or specialist taxa, respectively, whereas ASVs with an estimated observed occurrence within the 95% confidence interval were classified as transient taxa. , ASVs classified as generalist taxa are considered to be widely distributed among the systems (i.e., thriving under a wide range of environmental conditions and using an assortment of resources), whereas ASVs classified as specialist taxa are rare or occur only in a limited number of systems (i.e., having limited adaptability to environmental conditions and limited diet range) . The ASV niche classification was determined with the quasiswap permutation algorithm with 999 permutations using the EcolUtils E package (v0.1) in R.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…40,41 ASVs classified as generalist taxa are considered to be widely distributed among the systems (i.e., thriving under a wide range of environmental conditions and using an assortment of resources), whereas ASVs classified as specialist taxa are rare or occur only in a limited number of systems (i.e., having limited adaptability to environmental conditions and limited diet range). 42 The ASV niche classification was determined with the quasiswap permutation algorithm with 999 permutations using the EcolUtils E package (v0.1) in R.…”

Section: ■ Materials and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microbial Communities in Full-Scale Wastewater Treatment Systems Exhibit Deterministic Assembly Processes and Functional Dependency over Time

Tang²,

Lee

2021

Environ. Sci. Technol.

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Microbial communities constitute the core component of biological wastewater treatment processes. We conducted a meta-analysis based on the 16S rRNA gene of temporal samples obtained from diverse full-scale activated sludge and anaerobic digestion systems treating municipal and industrial wastewater (collected in this study and published previously) to investigate their community assembly mechanism and functional traits over time, which are not currently well understood. The influent composition was found to be the main driver of the microbial community’s composition, and relatively large proportions of specialist (26.1% and 18.6%) and transient taxa (67.2% and 68.1%) were estimated in both systems. Deterministic processes, especially homogeneous selection events (accounting for >53.8% of assembly events), were consistently identified as the dominant microbial community assembly mechanisms in both systems over time. Significant and strong correlations (Pearson’s r = 0.51–0.92) were detected between the dynamics of the temporal community and the functional compositions in both systems, which suggests functional dependency. In contrast, the occurrence of sludge bulking and foaming in the activated sludge system led to an increase in stochastic assembly processes (i.e., limited dispersal and undominated events), a shift toward functional redundancy and less community diversity, a decreased community niche breadth index, and a more compact co-association network. This study illustrates that the mechanism of microbial community assembly and functional traits over time can be used to diagnose system performance and provide information on potential system malfunction.

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“…The niche.width function of the spaa package was used to calculate niche breadth indexes of 25 plant families, and niche overlap indexes among 25 plant families were run by the niche.overlap function of the spaa package (Levins, 1968). According to the niche breadth index, the species were divided into three categories: generalist species, specialist species, and neutral taxa (Wilson & Hayek, 2015). All analyses were performed in R 3.6.0 (R Core Team, 2013).…”

Section: Niche Breadth and Niche Overlap Indexes Of Different Plant F...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental filtering rather than dispersal limitation dominated plant community assembly in the Zoige Plateau

Yang

Zhou

et al. 2022

Ecology and Evolution

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Identifying the mechanisms that underlie the assembly of plant communities is critical to the conservation of terrestrial biodiversity. However, it is seldom measured or quantified how much deterministic versus stochastic processes contribute to community assembly in alpine meadows. Here, we measured the decay in community similarity with spatial and environmental distance in the Zoige Plateau. Furthermore, we used redundancy analysis (RDA) to divide the variations in the relative abundance of plant families into four components to assess the effects of environmental and spatial. Species assemblage similarity liner declined with geographical distance (p < .001, R2 = .6388), and it decreased significantly with increasing distance of total phosphorus (TP), alkali‐hydrolyzable nitrogen (AN), available potassium (AK), nitrate nitrogen (NO3+–N), and ammonia nitrogen (NH4+–N). Environmental and spatial variables jointly explained a large proportion (55.2%) of the variation in the relative abundance of plant families. Environmental variables accounted for 13.1% of the total variation, whereas spatial variables accounted for 11.4%, perhaps due to the pronounced abiotic gradients in the alpine areas. Our study highlights the mechanism of plant community assembly in the alpine ecosystem, where environmental filtering plays a more important role than dispersal limitation. In addition, a reasonably controlled abundance of Compositae (the family with the highest niche breadth and large niche overlap value with Gramineae and Cyperaceae) was expected to maintain sustainable development in pastoral production. These results suggest that management measures should be developed with the goal of improving or maintaining suitable local environmental conditions.

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Distinguishing relative specialist and generalist species in the fossil record

Cited by 36 publications

References 58 publications

Primary Succession Changes the Composition and Functioning of the Protist Community on Mine Tailings, Especially Phototrophic Protists

Primary Succession Changes the Composition and Functioning of the Protist Community on Mine Tailings, Especially Phototrophic Protists

Microbial Communities in Full-Scale Wastewater Treatment Systems Exhibit Deterministic Assembly Processes and Functional Dependency over Time

Environmental filtering rather than dispersal limitation dominated plant community assembly in the Zoige Plateau

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