Collaborative Research: RAPID: Resistance and resilience of the microbial landscape following hurricane disturbance

Microbes living in soils carry out key ecosystem functions on which humans depend, including decomposition, nutrient cycling, and supporting plant growth. Hurricanes are increasing in both frequency and intensity, which may alter and possibly even disrupt these important microbial communities. However, there is very little information on the stability of microbial communities, especially in terms of the functions they carry out, when exposed to hurricane disturbance.

This study takes advantage of recent improvements in DNA sequencing technologies to assess the impacts of Hurricane Milton on the function and distribution of soil microbes. On October 9, 2024, Hurricane Milton hit Florida as a Category 3 major hurricane and passed over Archbold Biological Station. Recent surveys of soil microbes carried out at this site before Hurricane Milton make it possible to assess how hurricanes alter this important community and under what conditions microbial community function will be resilient to hurricane disturbances.

The project will engage middle school students in science via campus visits for hands-on learning events and the production of age-appropriate learning materials, and will also provide high-quality research experiences for undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral students.

Due to limited data on landscape-scale microbial functional diversity, this project will provide the first assessment in a natural terrestrial environment of 1) hurricane-driven shifts in microbial function and 2) hurricane-driven homogenization of microbial function at different spatial scales. This research will combine pre- and post-hurricane landscape-scale field surveys, microbial microcosm experiments, metagenomic sequencing, and bioinformatics to evaluate how microbial community taxonomic and functional biodiversity are restructured by hurricanes.

Specifically, we will compare recent pre-hurricane soil microbial function and diversity surveys of >80 patches of Florida scrub habitat across a natural landscape and ~100s of microcosms within patches with microbial function and diversity surveys from the same sites over the course of the following year. By tracking changes through time, the research will evaluate microbial resistance to and recovery from hurricane disturbance.

Model selection and multivariate analyses of metagenomic and abiotic landscape data will be used to determine which natural and human-driven environmental factors are most important for rapid recovery of microbiome function. Overall, this research will provide the ability to assess the stability of microbial functional and taxonomic diversity in the face of hurricane disturbance by identifying the degree of both resistance and resilience in microbial communities.

Collectively, this will provide the most complete picture of hurricane effects on microbial communities from any system.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.