A quantitative framework reveals the ecological drivers of grassland soil microbial community assembly in response to warming

Abstract

Unraveling the drivers controlling community assembly is a central issue in ecology. Selection, dispersal, diversification and drift are conceptually accepted as major community assembly processes. Defining their relative importance in governing biodiversity is compellingly needed, but very challenging. Here, we present a novel framework to quantitatively infer community assembly mechanisms by phylogenetic bin-based null model analysis (iCAMP). Our results with simulated microbial communities showed that iCAMP had high accuracy (0.93 - 0.99), precision (0.80 - 0.94), sensitivity (0.82 - 0.94), and specificity (0.95 - 0.98), which were 10-160% higher than those from the entire community-based approach. Applying it to grassland microbial communities in response to experimental warming, our analysis showed that homogeneous selection (38%) and "drift" (59%) played dominant roles in controlling grassland soil microbial community assembly. Interestingly, warming enhanced homogeneous selection, but decreased "drift" over time. Warming-enhanced selection was primarily imposed on Bacillales in Firmicutes, which were strengthened by increased drought and reduced plant productivity. This general framework should also be useful for plant and animal ecology.