Disturbance and recovery: a synthesis of microbial community reassembly
following disturbance across realms
Abstract
Disturbances alter the diversity and composition of microbial
communities, but whether microbiomes from different environments exhibit
similar degrees of resistance or rates of recovery has not been
evaluated. Here, we synthesized 86 time series of disturbed mammalian,
aquatic, and soil microbiomes to examine how the recovery of microbial
richness and community composition differed after disturbance. We found
no general patterns in compositional variance (i.e., dispersion) in any
microbiomes over time. Only mammalian microbiomes consistently exhibited
decreases in richness following disturbance. Importantly, they tended to
recover this richness, but not their composition, over time. In
contrast, aquatic microbiomes tended to diverge from their
pre-disturbance composition following disturbance. By synthesizing
microbiome responses across environments, our study aids in the
reconciliation of disparate microbial community assembly frameworks, and
highlights the role of the environment in microbial community reassembly
following disturbance.