Fig. 5: Community-wide genetic specialization of microbial nutrient cycling increases with succession.
From: Functional diversity of soil microbial communities increases with ecosystem development
Niche overlap of carbon cycling genes for (a) fungal and (b) bacterial communities across the land abandonment gradient. c, d show corresponding niche overlap of P-cycling genes. An additional figure showing bacterial N-cycling genes is found in the Supplementary Materials Fig. S4. Black points show mean genetic overlap ± s.d. (vertical lines) for each land-use stage. Horizontal lines connecting land-use stages indicate significant (p < 0.05) ordinary least-square or second-order polynomial regression fits (Table S14). Letters indicate significant differences (p < 0.05) between land use-stages based on pairwise Wilcoxon Rank-Sum Tests (Table S15). In panels e, f the C-cycling have been partitioned according to their C substrate class and displayed for (e) fungi and (f) bacteria across a gradient of increasing substrate complexity. Sample size n = 95 for all plots (a–f). Boxes in boxplots are bounded by the interquartile range (25th and 75th percentiles) of data, with the middle line showing the median. The box whiskers extend from the median to indicate minimum and maximum values at 1.5x the interquartile range. Stars (*) above these show substrates where differences between one or more land-use stages are significant (p < 0.05) based on pairwise Wilcoxon tests, with full test results found in Table S16. Corresponding boxplots for P-cycling pathways are found in Supplementary Materials Fig. S5, with test results found in Table S17-S18. OS Oligosaccharides; PG Peptidoglycan; OP Other polysaccharides; Mixed = Mix of oligo- and polysachhcarides Data and code to reproduce this figure are available at: (https://zenodo.org/records/17176048).
