Linking biodiversity to ecosystem functions is one of the most pressing scientific challenges of our time with great societal implications. Improved understanding of these links between microbial structure and ecosystem functions will advance our understanding of mechanisms and our ability to predict ecological processes. Here, we investigate if unifying links exist between microbial structure and ecosystem functions by synthesizing published work, our ongoing work, and NEON data.
Results/Conclusions
Our results highlight strong predictors of soil microbial community structure, including soil organic matter, time since disturbance, pH, and soil texture, that hold across biomes; and how microbial community structure is related to multiple ecosystem functions including soil respiration, nitrogen mineralization and litter decomposition. We conclude that using molecular tools to study eco-physiological traits is a promising approach to move beyond site specific relationships and generate unifying links between microbial structure and ecosystem functions.