Resources for Next Generation of Ecological Indicators Working Group

Relationships between protein-encoding gene abundance and corresponding process are commonly assumed yet rarely observed

For any enzyme-catalyzed reaction to occur, the corresponding protein-encoding genes and transcripts are necessary prerequisites. Thus, a positive relationship between the abundance of gene or transcripts and corresponding process rates is often assumed. To test this assumption, we conducted a meta-analysis of the relationships between gene and/or transcript abundances and corresponding process rates. We identified 415 studies that quantified the abundance of genes or transcripts for enzymes involved in carbon or nitrogen cycling. However, in only 59 of these manuscripts did the authors report both gene or transcript abundance and rates of the appropriate process. We found that within studies there was a significant...

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Linking microbial community structure and microbial processes: an empirical and conceptual overview

A major goal of microbial ecology is to identify links between microbial community structure and microbial processes. Although this objective seems straight forward, there are conceptual and methodological challenges to designing studies that explicitly evaluate this link. Here, we analyzed literature documenting structure and process responses to manipulations to determine the frequency of structure-process links and whether experimental approaches and techniques influence link detection. We examined nine journals (published 2009-13) and retained 148 experimental studies measuring microbial community structure and processes. Many qualifying papers (112 of 148) documented structure and process responses, but few...

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