Microbial diversity-ecosystem function relationships across environmental gradients

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In light of increasing anthropogenic pressures on ecosystems around the globe, the question how biodiversity change relates to ecosystem functions is an urgent issue, as human life relies on these functions of organisms in the critical zone between Earth’s canopies and bedrock. Particularly, soils play vital roles in nutrient cycling, promotion of plant growth, water purification, litter decomposition, and carbon storage, thereby securing food and water and stabilizing the climate. Soil functions are carried to a large part by complex communities of microorganisms, such as bacteria, archaea, fungi and protists. The assessment of microbial diversity and the microbiome's functional potential continues to pose significant challenges. Next generation sequencing offers some of the most promising tools to help shedding light on microbial diversity-function relationships. Studies relating microbial diversity and ecosystem functions are rare, particularly those on how this relationship is influenced by environmental gradients. The proposed project focuses on decomposition as one of the most important microbial soil ecosystem functions. The researchers from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig combine an unparalleled range of expertise from next generation sequencing- based analysis of microbial communities (“meta-omics”) to soil ecology and biodiversity-ecosystem function research. This consortium will make use of soil samples from large international networks to assess microbial diversity both at the taxonomic and functional level and across the domains of life. By linking microbial diversity to functional measurements of decomposition and environmental gradients, the proposed project aims to achieve a comprehensive scale-independent understanding of environmental drivers and anthropogenic effects on the structural and functional diversity of microbial communities and subsequent consequences for ecosystem functioning.