OOS 16: Microbial Community Coalescence: When Isolated Microbial Communities Collide

Session Organizer(s)

• Mario Muscarella

  University of Alaska Fairbanks, USA

Moderator(s)

• Ariane Peralta

  East Carolina University
  Greenville, NC, USA

Volunteer(s)

• Shih-Huai Cheng

  Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA

Every seed germinating in soils, handshake, tidal change, and stream confluence exemplify common instances of community coalescence - the blending of previously isolated communities. Do dispersal events change how we perceive disturbances, and how might the merging communities scale up to changes in terms of their composition and ecosystem function? In this session, research will examine how previously isolated microbial communities and environmental conditions collide and mix under dynamic conditions. Understanding the isolated community structure and function is needed to accurately predict the resultant microbial community and a range of functions at mixing zones. We will leverage community coalescence theory, which integrates meta-ecosystem dynamics and metacommunity studies. Research will focus on the community coalescence framework for predicting community responses to disturbance in diverse environments and host-associated habitats. The objectives of this session are to (1) understand the importance of community coalescence to ecology and engineered biotic systems, (2) develop innovative approaches to analyzing community mixing during coalescence, and (3) highlight the potential importance of network connectivity and specific biotic interactions in understanding and predicting the consequences of community coalescence.

Presentations:

• ON DEMAND

  Dispersal modifies the responses of bacterioplankton to salinity disturbances
  

  Presenting Author: Dandan Izabel-Shen – Department of Ecology, Environment and Plant Sciences, Stockholm University
• ON DEMAND

  Dominance of eutrophic generalist species after microbial community coalescence events
  

  Presenting Author: Sara Beier – Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research
• ON DEMAND

  Microbial community coalescence: When communities and ecosystems collide
  

  Presenting Author: Mario Muscarella – University of Alaska Fairbanks
• ON DEMAND

  Microdiversity is associated with low phylogenetic turnover in the glacier-fed stream microbiome
  

  Presenting Author: Stilianos Fodelianakis – Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne
• ON DEMAND

  The consequences of bifidobacteria diversity for ecosystem functioning
  

  Presenting Author: Cynthia Rodriguez – University of California, Irvine