Nutrient supply controls the linkage between species abundance and ecological interactions in marine bacterial communities

Tianjiao Dai, Donghui Wen (), Colin T. Bates, Linwei Wu, Xue Guo, Suo Liu, Yifan Su, Jiesi Lei, Jizhong Zhou and Yunfeng Yang ()
Additional contact information
Tianjiao Dai: Tsinghua University
Donghui Wen: Peking University
Colin T. Bates: University of Oklahoma
Linwei Wu: University of Oklahoma
Xue Guo: Tsinghua University
Suo Liu: Tsinghua University
Yifan Su: Tsinghua University
Jiesi Lei: Tsinghua University
Jizhong Zhou: University of Oklahoma
Yunfeng Yang: Tsinghua University

Nature Communications, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Nutrient scarcity is pervasive for natural microbial communities, affecting species reproduction and co-existence. However, it remains unclear whether there are general rules of how microbial species abundances are shaped by biotic and abiotic factors. Here we show that the ribosomal RNA gene operon (rrn) copy number, a genomic trait related to bacterial growth rate and nutrient demand, decreases from the abundant to the rare biosphere in the nutrient-rich coastal sediment but exhibits the opposite pattern in the nutrient-scarce pelagic zone of the global ocean. Both patterns are underlain by positive correlations between community-level rrn copy number and nutrients. Furthermore, inter-species co-exclusion inferred by negative network associations is observed more in coastal sediment than in ocean water samples. Nutrient manipulation experiments yield effects of nutrient availability on rrn copy numbers and network associations that are consistent with our field observations. Based on these results, we propose a “hunger games” hypothesis to define microbial species abundance rules using the rrn copy number, ecological interaction, and nutrient availability.

Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-27857-6 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-021-27857-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-27857-6

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().