Data from: Elevated success of multispecies bacterial invasions impacts community composition during ecological succession

Successful microbial invasions are determined by a species’ ability to occupy a niche in the new habitat whilst resisting competitive exclusion by the resident community. Despite the recognised importance of biotic factors in determining the invasiveness of microbial communities, the success and impact of multiple concurrent invaders on the resident community has not been examined. Simultaneous invasions might have synergistic effects, for example if resident species need to exhibit divergent phenotypes to compete with the invasive populations. We used three phylogenetically diverse bacterial species to invade two compositionally distinct communities in a controlled, naturalised in vitro system. By initiating the invader introductions at different stages of succession, we could disentangle the relative importance of resident community structure, invader diversity and time pre-invasion. Our results indicate that multiple invaders increase overall invasion success, but do not alter the successional trajectory of the whole community.

微生物入侵的成功与否，取决于物种能否在新栖息地占据生态位（niche）并抵御本土群落的竞争性排斥。尽管学界已明确生物因子对微生物群落入侵性的重要作用，但目前尚未有研究考察多入侵者同时入侵时的入侵成功率及其对本土群落的影响。同时入侵可能产生协同效应，例如当本土物种需要展现差异化表型（phenotype）以与入侵种群竞争时。本研究选用三种系统发育多样性各异的细菌物种，在受控的体外天然化培养系统中入侵两种群落组成截然不同的本土群落。通过在群落演替（succession）的不同阶段启动入侵者接种，我们得以厘清本土群落结构、入侵者多样性及入侵前时长三个因素的相对重要性。研究结果表明，多入侵者入侵可提升整体入侵成功率，但不会改变整个群落的演替轨迹。