麻豆淫院

Across the tree of life, human activities are accelerating declines in biological species diversity, from deserts to oceans to forests. But what about the microscopic world? Scientists in UC San Diego's School of Biological Sciences recently investigated how declining biodiversity in tiny ecological systems unseen to the naked eye can carry significant consequences for the health of organisms and ecosystems. The paper is in the journal mSystems.

Postdoctoral Scholar Jonathan Dickey and recent master's graduate Nikki Mercer from Assistant Professor Sara Jackrel's laboratory studied the implications of declining diversity within microbiomes鈥攃ommunities of microorganisms, such as bacteria, which can form tight associations with their hosts, such as plants and animals.

Recent studies in microbial ecology have found that microbiomes can play a key role in regulating host health, leading researchers to believe that as our world changes it is imperative to understand the implications of biodiversity loss within the host microbiome.

Dickey, Mercer and their colleagues used phytoplankton, which are microscopic, single-celled plant-like organisms, and their external microbiomes as a tractable model system. By manipulating host-associated microbiome diversity into three levels (low, medium and high), they measured the effects of microbiome diversity on host growth, persistence and host-facilitated nutrient cycling.

Their study compared these effects of microbiome diversity against the effects of elevated temperature and altered nutrient availability, which are two other factors that are being affected by human activities that can also cause stress to host organisms.

The results showed that drops in microbiome diversity result in effects that cut across many levels of biological organization, from changes to host physiology to community dynamics and nutrient cycling effects.