Taxonomic and functional diversity are nested in bromeliad food web communities

The goal of this project is to investigate community structure across microbial food webs. Taxonomy and function associated with the bacteriome of tank bromeliad systems were identified across four distinct trophic compartments - water, leaf litter, detritivorous mosquitoes, and carnivorous mosquitoes - and analyzed to determine the extent of nestedness in the bacterial communities. This project contributes to our understanding of microbial community assembly, moving toward establishing the rules that govern life in microbial ecosystems.