Desert soil culture-enriched metagenomics

This project aims to investigate the taxonomic and functional responses of desert soil microbiomes to thermal stress by integrating large-scale culture-enriched metagenomics with genome-resolved analysis. We focused on two representative desert soil types from the Gurbantunggut Desert, including rhizosphere and bulk soils, and subjected them to 90 distinct culture conditions varying in media types and incubation temperatures. A total of 92 metagenomic datasets, including two from original soils and 90 from culture-enriched samples, were generated and analyzed. Using a standardized pipeline, we reconstructed 1,258 metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs), including a large number of high-quality cultivated MAGs (cMAGs), and explored their taxonomic composition, co-occurrence patterns, and metabolic profiles. This study provides novel insights into the ecological adaptation and functional reorganization of desert bacterial communities under temperature stress, and delivers a valuable genomic resource for future microbial ecology and climate-related research.