Scaling Microbial Biomass, Metabolism, and Resource Supply
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2-2015
Department
Biological Sciences
School
Biological, Environmental, and Earth Sciences
Abstract
The microbiome concept has drawn attention to the complex signal and syntrophic networks that underlie microbial community organization. This self-organization may lead to patterns in the allometric scaling of microbial community metabolism that differ from those of macrobial communities. Using meta-analyses, we analyzed the power scaling relationships between community production, respiration, extracellular enzyme activity and biomass for bacteria and fungi across aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. The scaling exponents for community production versus biomass for fungi and bacteria were 0.85 ± 0.06 (95 % CI) and 0.72 ± 0.07, respectively. The scaling exponent for fungal respiration versus production was 0.61 ± 0.06. Previous studies reported exponents of 0.41, 0.44 and 0.58 for bacterial respiration versus production. Carbon use efficiency increased with biomass for both fungi and bacteria with an exponent of 0.27 ± 0.06. The potential activities of four widely measured extracellular enzymes were directly related to community production with power scaling exponents of 1.0–1.2. The frequency distribution of biomass turnover times (median 112 h for bacteria and 1,128 h for fungi) overlapped substantially with those for environmental substrate turnover, presented in a prior analysis of extracellular enzyme kinetics. These metabolic relationships, which have scaling exponents of 0.5, are linked by the ratio of assimilation to carbon use efficiency. This connection ties ecological stoichiometry and metabolic theory to microbial community homeostasis. At the ecosystem scale, allometry of microbial communities has similarities to that of eusocial insects but differs from that of plant communities, perhaps as a result of proto-cooperative processes that contribute to microbial community organization.
Publication Title
Biogeochemistry
Volume
122
Issue
2-3
First Page
175
Last Page
190
Recommended Citation
Sinsabaugh, R. L.,
Shah, J. J.,
Findlay, S. G.,
Kuehn, K. A.,
Moorhead, D. L.
(2015). Scaling Microbial Biomass, Metabolism, and Resource Supply. Biogeochemistry, 122(2-3), 175-190.
Available at: https://aquila.usm.edu/fac_pubs/15602