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Human disturbance drives differential diversity patterns of microbial communities in hypogean habitats
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  • Elena Piano,
  • Federico Biagioli,
  • Giuseppe Nicolosi,
  • Claudia Coleine,
  • Anna Poli,
  • Valeria Prigione,
  • Andrea Zanellati,
  • Rosangela Addesso,
  • Cristina Varese,
  • Laura Selbmann,
  • Marco ISAIA
Elena Piano
University of Turin

Corresponding Author:elena.piano@unito.it

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Federico Biagioli
Università degli Studi della Tuscia
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Giuseppe Nicolosi
Università degli Studi di Torino
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Claudia Coleine
Università degli Studi della Tuscia
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Anna Poli
Università degli Studi di Torino
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Valeria Prigione
Università degli Studi di Torino
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Andrea Zanellati
Università degli Studi di Torino
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Rosangela Addesso
Università degli Studi di Salerno
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Cristina Varese
Università degli Studi di Torino
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Laura Selbmann
Università degli Studi della Tuscia
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Marco ISAIA
Universita degli Studi di Torino
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Abstract

The metacommunity framework has been rarely adopted to investigate the underlying ecological mechanisms shaping microbial communities. With the aid of advanced molecular techniques, we investigated sediment communities of Fungi, Bacteria and Archaea in four Italian show caves aiming to disentangle the effects induced by tourists on species richness and composition from environmental filtering and dispersal driven mechanisms. We modelled community changes against human disturbance ---measured as the distance from the tourist path---demonstrating that the presence of visitors in caves decreases fungal species richness and causes species replacement in Bacteria and Archaea. Environmental filtering affects species richness and composition of Fungi and species richness of Archaea, while a minor role was played by dispersal, influencing only species richness in Fungi. We provide new perspectives on the dynamics of microbial communities under human disturbance suggesting that a proper understanding of the underlying selective mechanisms requires a comprehensive and multi-taxonomic approach.