Distribution of microbial generalists and habitat specialists in Chilean soils

We identified the soil microbial community composition on a broad continental scale along the Chilean Coastal Cordillera based on the generalist-specialist concept. Our results show that soil communities from different climate regions, ranging from arid, semi-arid, mediterranean, to humid temperate are composed of the same subset of taxonomic groups. We obtained higher proportions of habitat specialists (34 groups) than generalists (22 groups) with an increase of the generalist-to-specialist index along our gradient from North to South. Especially the arid climate region revealed a unique hotspot of microbial specialization (60.1%). Our study supports that species sorting in response to local environmental factors is a key determinant of microbial community composition and further, the degree of microbial specialization can potentially be linked to the overall ecosystem stability.