Life Sciences Commons^™

Exploring Microbiome Functional Dynamics Through Space And Time With Trait-Based Theory, Leonora S. Bittleston, Jessica R. Bernardin

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Microbiomes play essential roles in the health and function of animal and plant hosts and drive nutrient cycling across ecosystems. Integrating novel trait-based approaches with ecological theory can facilitate the prediction of microbial functional traits important for ecosystem functioning and health. In particular, the yield-acquisition-stress (Y-A-S) framework considers dominant microbial life history strategies across gradients of resource availability and stress. However, microbiomes are dynamic, and spatial and temporal shifts in taxonomic and trait composition can affect ecosystem functions. We posit that extending the Y-A-S framework to microbiomes during succession and across biogeographic gradients can lead to generalizable rules for how …

An Updated Infra-Familial Classification Of Sapindaceae Based On Targeted Enrichment Data, Sven Buerki

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Premise: The economically important, cosmopolitan soapberry family (Sapindaceae) comprises ca. 1900 species in 144 genera. Since the seminal work of Radlkofer, several authors have attempted to overcome challenges presented by the family’s complex infra-familial classification. With the advent of molecular systematics, revisions of the various proposed groupings have provided significant momentum, but we still lack a formal classification system rooted in an evolutionary framework.

Methods: Nuclear DNA sequence data were generated for 123 genera (86%) of Sapindaceae using target sequence capture with the Angiosperms353 universal probe set. HybPiper was used to produce aligned DNA matrices. Phylogenetic inferences were obtained using …

Environment–Host–Microbial Interactions Shape The Sarraceniapurpurea Microbiome At The Continental Scale, Zachary B. Freedman, Alicia Mcgrew, Benjamin Baiser, Mathilde Besson, Dominique Gravel, Timothée Poisot, Sydne Record, Lauren B. Trotta, Nicholas J. Gotelli

Biology Faculty Research and Scholarship

The importance of climate, habitat structure, and higher trophic levels on microbial diversity is only beginning to be understood. Here, we examined the influence of climate variables, plant morphology, and the abundance of aquatic invertebrates on the microbial biodiversity of the northern pitcher plant Sarracenia purpurea. The plant's cup‐shaped leaves fill with rainwater and support a miniature, yet full‐fledged, ecosystem with a diverse microbiome that decomposes captured prey and a small network of shredding and filter‐feeding aquatic invertebrates that feed on microbes. We characterized pitcher microbiomes of 108 plants sampled at 36 sites from Florida to Quebec. Structural equation …

Exploring Microbiome Functional Dynamics Through Space And Time With Trait-Based Theory, Leonora S. Bittleston, Zachary B. Freedman, Jessica R. Bernardin, Jacob J. Grothjan, Erica B. Young, Sydne Record, Benjamin Baiser, Sarah M. Gray

Biology Faculty Research and Scholarship

Microbiomes play essential roles in the health and function of animal and plant hosts and drive nutrient cycling across ecosystems. Integrating novel trait-based approaches with ecological theory can facilitate the prediction of microbial functional traits important for ecosystem functioning and health. In particular, the yield-acquisition-stress (Y-A-S) framework considers dominant microbial life history strategies across gradients of resource availability and stress. However, microbiomes are dynamic, and spatial and temporal shifts in taxonomic and trait composition can affect ecosystem functions. We posit that extending the Y-A-S framework to microbiomes during succession and across biogeographic gradients can lead to generalizable rules for how …