Dataset Information

Global Patterns and Climatic Controls of Dust-Associated Microbial Communities.

ABSTRACT: The ubiquity and long-range transport of the microorganisms inhabiting dust can pose a serious risk to human, animal, and plant health. The well-recognized importance of dust-associated microorganisms contrasts starkly with our limited understanding of the factors determining the variation in the composition of these communities at the global scale. Here, we provide the first insight into the global determinants of dust-associated microorganisms by quantifying the environmental factors shaping bacterial and fungal community composition in 467 outdoor settled dust samples collected from 33 countries and 6 continents. Our results show that the global variation in dust-associated bacterial and fungal community composition was, to some degree, predictable from mean annual precipitation and temperature. Notably, our results show that the fungal genera Alternaria and Aspergillus, which contain many species that can serve as triggers of allergenic disease in humans and as plant pathogens, were more abundant in drier regions. Collectively, these results highlight the key influence of climate on the global distribution of dust-associated microorganisms and provide the baseline information needed to build a more comprehensive understanding of how microbial exposures vary across the globe and in response to climate change. IMPORTANCE A broad diversity of microorganisms can be found in dust, with some of these microorganisms capable of causing allergenic disease in human via inhalation or affecting plant health by acting as plant pathogens. However, the spatial variation in dust microbiomes and the environmental factors associated with this variation have not been comprehensively assessed at the global scale. Here, we investigated the bacteria and fungi found in outdoor settled dust samples spanning 33 countries and 6 continents. Our results show that dust-associated bacteria and fungi exhibit climate-driven variability in community composition at the global scale. Our results call for the development of strategies to predict the geographic distribution of dust-associated microorganisms and to identify the potential associations between microbial exposures and the health of humans, animals, and plants.

SUBMITTER: Chen Y

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8515940 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:Different habitats harbor different microbial communities with elusive assembly mechanisms. This study comprehensively investigated the global assembly mechanisms of microbial communities and effects of community-internal influencing factors using the Earth Microbiome Project (EMP) data set. We found that deterministic and stochastic processes contribute approximately equally to global microbial community assembly, and, specifically, deterministic processes generally play a major role in free-living and plant-associated (but not plant corpus) environments, while stochastic processes are the major contributor in animal-associated environments. In contrast with the assembly of microorganisms, the assembly of functional genes, predicted from PICRUSt, is mainly attributed to deterministic processes in all microbial communities. The sink and source microbial communities are normally assembled using similar mechanisms, and the core microorganisms are specific to different environment types. On a global scale, deterministic processes are positively related to the community alpha diversity, microbial interaction degree and bacterial predatory-specific gene abundance. Our analysis provides a panoramic picture and regularities of global and environment-typical microbial community assemblies. IMPORTANCE With the development of sequencing technologies, the research topic of microbial ecology has evolved from the analysis of community composition to community assembly, including the relative contribution of deterministic and stochastic processes for the formation and maintenance of community diversity. Many studies have reported the microbial assembly mechanisms in various habitats, but the assembly regularities of global microbial communities remain unknown. In this study, we analyzed the EMP data set using a combined pipeline to explore the assembly mechanisms of global microbial communities, microbial sources to construct communities, core microbes in different environment types, and community-internal factors influencing assembly. The results provide a panoramic picture and rules of global and environment-typical microbial community assemblies, which enhances our understandings of the mechanisms globally controlling community diversity and species coexistence.

Dataset Information

Global Patterns and Climatic Controls of Dust-Associated Microbial Communities.

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