RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Diversity begets diversity in microbiomes
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 612739
DO 10.1101/612739
A1 Naïma Madi
A1 Michiel Vos
A1 Pierre Legendre
A1 B. Jesse Shapiro
YR 2019
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/04/18/612739.abstract
AB Microbes are embedded in complex microbiomes where they engage in a wide array of interspecific interactions. However, how these interactions shape diversification, and ultimately biodiversity, is not well understood. Two competing hypotheses have been put forward to explain how species interactions could influence diversification rates. Ecological Controls (EC) predicts a negative diversity-diversification relationship, where the evolution of novel types becomes constrained as available niches become filled. Diversity Begets Diversity (DBD) predicts a positive relationship, with diversity promoting diversification via niche construction and other species interactions. Using the Earth Microbiome Project, the largest standardized survey of global biodiversity to date, we provide support for DBD as the dominant driver of microbiome diversity. Only in the most diverse microbiomes does DBD reach a plateau, presumably because of increasingly saturated niche space. Genera that are strongly associated with particular biomes show a stronger DBD relationship than non-residents, consistent with prolonged evolutionary interactions driving diversification. Genera with larger genomes also experience a stronger DBD response, which could be due to a higher potential for metabolic interactions and niche construction. Our results provide evidence that microbiome diversity – and its potential for future diversification – is crucially shaped by species interactions.One Sentence Summary Making use of the most comprehensive biodiversity catalogue, the Earth Microbiome Project, we show that prokaryote diversification significantly correlates with microbiome diversity, pointing to the importance of species interactions in driving microbial evolution and community structure.