Fig. 5: Drought-induced changes in the top ¹⁸O assimilating taxa agglomerated at the genus level.

Heatmap showing taxa with the highest proportional ¹⁸O assimilation (contribution to the total community’s growth) under ambient precipitation (a) and drought (b), visualized across all treatments and individual samples (rectangles, n = 4). Amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) were ranked based on their proportional ¹⁸O assimilation, separately, for drought-unaffected (a: Ambient, Future Climate) and drought-affected samples (b: Ambient + Drought, Future Climate + Drought). The top five ASVs per sample were then selected (a: 26 total unique ASVs; b: 19 total unique ASVs) and visualized. Proportional ¹⁸O assimilation ranges from 0−1 and estimates how much a single taxon contributes to the community’s overall growth. It is calculated using re-computed relative abundances of only growing taxa (sum of growing taxa = 1) and their relative growth rates (RGR). ASVs had to be active in at least two samples if detected as growing in a treatment. ASV identities were agglomerated at the genus level and sorted in descending order based on proportional ¹⁸O assimilation. If genus identity could not be assigned (NA), we agglomerated taxa at the family or phylum level. Source data are provided with this paper.