Functional significance of microbial diversity in arid soils: biological soil crusts and nitrogen fixation as a model system

Microbial communities respond to changes in environmental conditions; however, how compositional shifts affect ecosystem processes is still not well-understood and it is often assumed that different microbial communities will function equally under similar environmental conditions. We evaluated this assumption of functional redundancy using biological soil crusts (BSCs) from two arid ecosystems in Mexico with contrasting climate conditions (hot and cold deserts) following an experimental approach both in the field (reciprocal transplants) and in laboratory conditions (common garden), focusing on the community’s composition and potential for nitrogen fixation. Potential of nitrogen fixation was assessed through the acetylene reduction assay. Community composition and diversity was determined with T-RFLPs of nifH gene, high throughput sequencing of 16S rRNA gene amplicons and metagenomic libraries. BSCs tended to show higher potential nitrogen fixation rates when experiencing temperatures more similar to their native environment. Moreover, changes in potential nitrogen fixation, taxonomic and functional community composition, and diversity often depended on an interactive effect of origin of the communities and the environment they experienced. We interpret our results as legacy effects that result from ecological specialization of the BSC communities to their native environment. Overall, we present evidence of nonfunctional redundancy of BSCs in terms of nitrogen fixation.