Disentangling mechanisms that mediate the balance between stochastic and deterministic processes in microbial succession

Ecological succession and the balance between stochastic and deterministic processes are two major themes within microbial ecology, but these conceptual domains have mostly developed independent of each other. Here we provide a framework that integrates shifts in community assembly processes with microbial primary succession to better understand mechanisms governing the stochastic/deterministic balance. Synthesizing previous work, we devised a conceptual model that links ecosystem development to alternative hypotheses related to shifts in ecological assembly processes. Conceptual model hypotheses were tested by coupling spatiotemporal data on soil bacterial communities with environmental conditions in a salt…

• UD
  U.S. Department of Energy
• B
  Battelle
• NO
  Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek
• PN
  Pacific Northwest National Laboratory