Experimental community coalescence sheds light on microbial interactions in soil and restores impaired functions (18S rRNA)

While microbes can interact with each other in numerous ways, little is known about the contribution of these interactions to microbial community assembly. Here, we combine experimental removal and coalescence approaches for exploring the importance of interactions between soil microorganisms as well as the links between community structure and soil functions. We show that coalescence between depleted and control microbial communities re-established the original interactions and partly or fully restored community diversity and functions. Our results furthermore suggest that density-dependent interactions are important in soil and have affected the outcome of coalescence. We also find that shifts in both inorganic nitrogen pools and soil pH were related to the proportion of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria. Here, our findings highlight the potential of removal and coalescence approaches for unravelling microbial interactions as well as structure function associations in microbial communities.