title: Effectiveness of ecological rescue for altered soil microbial communities and functions.
abstract: Soil ecosystems worldwide are subjected to marked modifications caused by anthropogenic disturbances and global climate change, resulting in microbial diversity loss and alteration of ecosystem functions. Despite the paucity of studies, restoration ecology provides an appropriate framework for testing the potential of manipulating soil microbial communities for the recovery of ecosystem functioning. We used a reciprocal transplant design in experimentally altered microbial communities to investigate the effectiveness of introducing microbial communities in degraded soil ecosystems to restore N-cycle functioning. Microbial diversity loss resulted in alternative compositional states associated with impaired N-cycle functioning. Here, the addition of complex microbial communities to these altered communities revealed a pivotal role of deterministic community assembly processes. The diversity of some alternative compositional states was successfully increased but without significant restoration of soil N-cycle functioning. However, in the most degraded alternative state, the introduction of new microbial communities caused an overall decrease in phylogenetic diversity and richness. The successful soil colonization by newly introduced species for some compositional states indicates that priority effects could be overridden when attempting to manipulate microbial communities for soil restoration. Altogether, our result showed consistent patterns within restoration treatments with minor idiosyncratic effects. This suggests the predominance of deterministic processes and the predictability of restoration trajectories, which could be used to guide the effective management of microbial community assemblages for ecological restoration of soils.
authors.affiliation: Agroécologie, AgroSup Dijon, INRA, Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté, Dijon, France.
authors.forename: Kadiya
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Calderón
authors.affiliation: Agroécologie, AgroSup Dijon, INRA, Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté, Dijon, France.
authors.forename: Aymé
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Spor
authors.affiliation: Agroécologie, AgroSup Dijon, INRA, Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté, Dijon, France.
authors.forename: Marie-Christine
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Breuil
authors.affiliation: Agroécologie, AgroSup Dijon, INRA, Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté, Dijon, France.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Bru
authors.affiliation: Agroécologie, AgroSup Dijon, INRA, Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté, Dijon, France.
authors.forename: Florian
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Bizouard
authors.affiliation: CNRS, Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive, UMR 5175, Montpellier Cedex 5, France.
authors.forename: Cyrille
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Violle
authors.affiliation: Agroécologie, AgroSup Dijon, INRA, Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté, Dijon, France.
authors.forename: Romain L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Barnard
authors.affiliation: Agroécologie, AgroSup Dijon, INRA, Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté, Dijon, France.
authors.forename: Laurent
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-3461-4492
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Philippot
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D044822:Biodiversity; D002980:Climate; D057231:Climate Change; D017753:Ecosystem; D010802:Phylogeny; D012987:Soil / Q000737:chemistry; D012988:Soil Microbiology
chemical_list: D012987:Soil