Data from: Reconstructing the microbial diversity and function of pre-agricultural tallgrass prairie soils in the United States

Native tallgrass prairie once dominated much of the midwestern United
States, but this biome and the soil microbial diversity that once
sustained this highly productive system have been almost completely
eradicated by decades of agricultural practices. We reconstructed the soil
microbial diversity that once existed in this biome by analyzing relict
prairie soils and found that the biogeographical patterns were largely
driven by changes in the relative abundance of Verrucomicrobia, a poorly
studied bacterial phylum that appears to dominate many prairie soils.
Shotgun metagenomic data suggested that these spatial patterns were
associated with strong shifts in carbon dynamics. We show that metagenomic
approaches can be used to reconstruct below-ground biogeochemical and
diversity gradients in endangered ecosystems; such information could be
used to improve restoration efforts, given that even small changes in
below-ground microbial diversity can have important impacts on ecosystem
processes.