A comparison of taxon co-occurrence patterns for macro- and microorganisms

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Issue Date
2007-06-01Author
Horner-Devine, M. Claire
Silver, Jessica M.
Leibold, Mathew A.
Bohannan, Brendan J. M.
Colwell, Robert K.
Fuhrman, Jed A.
Green, Jessica L.
Kuske, Cheryl R.
Martiny, Jennifer B. H.
Muyzer, Gerard
Øvreås, Lise
Reysenbach, Anna-Louise
Smith, Val H.
Publisher
Ecological Society of America
Type
Article
Article Version
Scholarly/refereed, publisher version
Rights
Copyright by the Ecological Society of America
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
We examine co-occurrence patterns of microorganisms to evaluate community assembly “rules.” We use methods previously applied to macroorganisms, both to evaluate their applicability to microorganisms and to allow comparison of co-occurrence patterns observed in microorganisms to those found in macroorganisms. We use a null model analysis of 124 incidence matrices from microbial communities, including bacteria, archaea, fungi, and algae, and we compare these results to previously published findings from a meta-analysis of almost 100 macroorganism data sets. We show that assemblages of microorganisms demonstrate nonrandom patterns of co-occurrence that are broadly similar to those found in assemblages of macroorganisms. These results suggest that some taxon co-occurrence patterns may be general characteristics of communities of organisms from all domains of life. We also find that co-occurrence in microbial communities does not vary among taxonomic groups or habitat types. However, we find that the degree of co-occurrence does vary among studies that use different methods to survey microbial communities. Finally, we discuss the potential effects of the undersampling of microbial communities on our results, as well as processes that may contribute to nonrandom patterns of co-occurrence in both macrobial and microbial communities such as competition, habitat filtering, historical effects, and neutral processes.
ISSN
0012-9658Collections
Citation
M. Claire Horner-Devine, Jessica M. Silver, Mathew A. Leibold, Brendan J. M. Bohannan, Robert K. Colwell, Jed A. Fuhrman, Jessica L. Green, Cheryl R. Kuske, Jennifer B. H. Martiny, Gerard Muyzer, Lise Øvreås, Anna-Louise Reysenbach, and Val H. Smith 2007. A COMPARISON OF TAXON CO-OCCURRENCE PATTERNS FOR MACRO- AND MICROORGANISMS. Ecology 88:1345–1353. http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/06-0286
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