Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo

Spanish National Research Council | CSIC · INSTITUTO DE RECURSOS NATURALES Y AGROBIOLOGÍA DE SEVILLA

Biodiversity is declining world‐wide with detrimental effects on ecosystems. However, we lack a quantitative understanding of the shape of the relationship between microbial biodiversity and ecosystem function ( BEF ). This limits our understanding of how microbial diversity depletion can impact key functions for human well‐being, including polluta...

We lack both a theoretical framework and solid empirical data to understand domestication impacts on plant chemistry. We hypothesised that domestication increased leaf N and P to support high plant production rates, but biogeographic and climate patterns further influenced the magnitude and direction of changes in specific aspects of chemistry and...

Despite the importance of microbial communities for ecosystem services and human welfare, the relationship between microbial diversity and multiple ecosystem functions and services (that is, multifunctionality) at the global scale has yet to be evaluated. Here we use two independent, large-scale databases with contrasting geographic coverage (from...

Climatic conditions shift gradually over millennia, altering the rates at which carbon (C) is fixed from the atmosphere and stored in the soil. However, legacy impacts of past climates on current soil C stocks are poorly understood. We used data from more than 5000 terrestrial sites from three global and regional data sets to identify the relative...

How the multiple facets of soil fungal diversity vary worldwide remains virtually unknown, hindering the management of this essential species-rich group. By sequencing high-resolution DNA markers in over 4000 topsoil samples from natural and human-altered ecosystems across all continents, we illustrate the distributions and drivers of different lev...

Changes in species composition and management operations can have heavy effects on Mediterranean forest ecosystem. However, how these drivers influence the capacity of Mediterranean forests to provide multiple ecosystem functions remains poorly understood. This study evaluates ecosystem multi-functionality (EMF) in Mediterranean forests, comparing...

Microbes inhabiting deep soil layers are known to be different from their counterpart in topsoil yet remain under investigation in terms of their structure, function, and how their diversity is shaped. The microbiome of deep soils (>1 m) is expected to be relatively stable and highly independent from climatic conditions. Much less is known, however...

Biodiversity-function relationships in ecosystems are known to be driven by environmental conditions, including climate change. Plant functional groups (PFGs), specifically their evolutionary history, nitrogen-fixation capacity or photosynthetic-pathway likely play a critical role in shaping microbial communities and their impact on ecosystem funct...

The rewilding of modern agriculture is challenged by our current uncertainties on the microbiome of major crop wild progenitors (CWPs). Here, we conducted the first global standardised field survey to investigate the edaphoclimatic conditions and soil microbiome of 125 wild populations associated with 10 of the most important CWPs at their centres...

The role of soil biodiversity and soil health in regulating primary productivity across different land use types is still poorly understood, hindering our ability to predict the impact of soil degradation on essential ecosystem services such as food provision. To address this gap, we conducted a pan-European observational field study using data fro...

Grazing exclusion alters grassland soil aggregation, microbiome composition, and biogeochemical processes. However, the long-term effects of grazing exclusion on the microbial communities and nutrient dynamics within soil aggregates remain unclear. We conducted a 36-year exclusion experiment to investigate how grazing exclusion affects the soil mic...

Soil microbial residues are a critical component of stable soil organic carbon pools in terrestrial ecosystems. Plantations are anticipated to increase soil stable carbon stocks and contribute toward addressing global climate change. How rewilding, as a strategy to restore the multiple ecological functions of plantations, affects soil microbial res...

Soil inorganic carbon (SIC) plays a crucial role in regulating global carbon (C) cycling by linking the long‐term geological and short‐term biological C cycles. Soil inorganic carbon stocks are thought to be mainly driven by abiotic factors. However, despite the well‐known influence of vegetation and soil microbes on terrestrial C pools, the relati...

Soil carbon is a critical ecosystem function in drylands. In these ecosystems, positive relationships between plant species richness (SR) and soil carbon storage (SOC) that have been found in biodiversity experiments and observational studies may be reduced by grazing and aridity. However, studies about the extent to which SR, grazing intensity, an...

Supporting food security while maintaining ecosystem sustainability is one of the most important global challenges for humanity. Optimization of cropping systems is expected to promote the ecosystem services of agroecosystems. Yet, how and why cropping system influences the trade‐offs between economic profitability and multiple ecosystem services r...

The frequency and intensity of droughts worldwide are challenging the conservation of soil organic carbon (SOC) pool. Microbial necromass is a key component of SOC, but how it responds to drought at specific soil depths remains largely unknown. Here, we conducted a 3‐year field experiment in a forest plantation to investigate the impacts of drought...

Biocrusts are a dominant component in drylands worldwide and play critical roles in supporting soil microbial diversity and carbon (C) stocks. Nitrogen (N) fertilization associated with human activities threatens drylands, which are often considered N-limited ecosystems. Here, we conducted a field experiment in two contrasting soil types (loess vs....

Aim Theory suggests that the diversity of molecules in soil organic matter (SOM functional diversity) provides key insights on multiple ecosystem services. We aimed to investigate how and why SOM functional diversity and composition change as topsoils develop, and its implications for key soil functions (e.g., from nutrient pool to water regulation...

The cave microbiota is assumed to be shaped by indoor microclimate, biotic and abiotic factors, which are largely dependent from outside environmental conditions; however, this knowledge is available at local or regional scales only. To address this knowledge gap, we reanalyzed over 1050 bacterial and fungal communities of caves worldwide, and foun...

Aim The formation of thermokarst lakes could make a large amount of carbon accessible to microbial degradation, potentially intensifying the permafrost carbon‐climate feedback via carbon dioxide/methane emissions. Because of their diverse functional roles, prokaryotes could strongly mediate biogeochemical cycles in thermokarst lakes. However, littl...

Black fungi are among the most resistant organisms to ionizing radiation on Earth. However, our current knowledge is based on studies on a few isolates, while the overall radioresistance limits across this microbial group and the relationship with local environmental conditions remain largely undetermined. To address this knowledge gap, we assessed...

Fairy circles (FCs) are regular vegetation patterns found in drylands of Namibia and Western Australia. It is virtually unknown whether they are also present in other regions of the world and which environmental factors determine their distribution. We conducted a global systematic survey and found FC-like vegetation patterns in 263 sites from 15 c...

Artificial lights can cause critical microbial biodeterioration of heritage monuments by promoting the outbreak of phototrophic microbiomes when they are used for touristic viewing. Here, with the ultimate aim of providing innovative solutions for the conservation and visiting of such monuments, we conducted a pioneering two-year in situ manipulati...

Drylands cover almost half of the planet and support >25% the global population. In this era of global warming, they are expected to continue expanding by the end of the century as a consequence of predicted increases in aridity, which will affect multiple global locations that are already characterised by extreme temperatures, low and variable rai...

Soil-borne pathogens pose a major threat to food production worldwide, particularly under global change and with growing populations. Yet, we still know very little about how the soil microbiome regulates the abundance of soil pathogens and their impact on plant health. Here we combined field surveys with experiments to investigate the relationship...

Grazing by domestic herbivores is the most widespread land use on the planet, and also a major global change driver in grasslands. Yet, experimental evidence on the long-term impacts of livestock grazing on biodiversity and function is largely lacking. Here, we report results from a network of 10 experimental sites from paired grazed and ungrazed g...

Soil is one of the largest reservoirs for antibiotic resistance in the world. Bacteria can carry antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and share them via mechanisms like mobile genetic elements. Antibiotic resistance in the soil microbes impacts microbial community dynamics and it can spread to human and animal pathogens. Despite this importance, this...

The decomposition of litter and the supply of nutrients into and from the soil are two fundamental processes through which the above and belowground world interact. Microbial biodiversity, and especially that of decomposers, plays a key role in these processes by helping litter decomposition. Yet the relative contribution of litter diversity and so...

Anthropogenic activities are causing unprecedented rates of soil and ecosystem degradation, and the current restoration practices take decades and are prone to high rates of failure. Here we propose, the development and application of emerging microbiome tools that can potentially improve the contents and diversity of soil organic matters, enhancin...

Background Endolithic niches offer an ultimate refuge, supplying buffered conditions for microorganisms that dwell inside rock airspaces. Yet, survival and growth strategies of Antarctic endolithic microbes residing in Earths’ driest and coldest desert remains virtually unknown. Results From 109 endolithic microbiomes, 4,539 metagenome-assembled g...

Soil stores a large amount of mercury (Hg) that has adverse effects on human health and ecosystem safety. Significant uncertainties still exist in revealing environmental drivers of soil Hg accumulation and predicting global Hg distribution owing to the lack of field data from global standardized analyses. Here, we conducted a global standardized f...

Rice production poses one of the most important trade-offs between climate regulation and food security. Fertilization often results in higher yield, but also in more greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Such a trade-off represents a major threat to our capacity to mitigate on-going climate change while supporting a continuously growing global populatio...

Management practices are expected to influence the capacity of forests to mitigate climate change. However, the long‐term effects of afforestation on soil carbon accumulation in response to contrasting management regimes remain poorly understood. Here, we combined organic matter fractionation with a nine‐year‐long organic fertilization experiment t...

Understanding the chemical composition of our planet's crust was one of the biggest questions of the 20th century. More than 100 years later, we are still far from understanding the global patterns in the bioavailability and spatial coupling of elements in topsoils worldwide, despite their importance for the productivity and functioning of terrestr...

Despite host‐fungal symbiotic interactions being ubiquitous in all ecosystems, understanding how symbiosis has shaped the ecology and evolution of fungal spores that are involved in dispersal and colonization of their hosts has been ignored in life‐history studies. We assembled a spore morphology database covering over 26,000 species of free‐living...

Microbial communities in soils are generally considered to be limited by carbon (C), which could be a crucial control for basic soil functions and responses of microbial heterotrophic metabolism to climate change. However, global soil microbial C limitation (MCL) has rarely been estimated and is poorly understood. Here, we predicted MCL, defined as...

Biochar has gained global attention due to its potential for climate change mitigation and soil quality improvement. Yet, the consequences of biochar additions for soil microbes -the major biotic drivers of soil function- remain unknown across global environmental gradients. We aimed to explore the responses of soil bacterial communities to biochar...

Soil microorganisms play a crucial role in ecosystem processes and functions, but how their co‐occurrence networks respond to restoration of degraded ecosystems remains poorly understood. Here, we examined the effects of revegetation on the structure and function of the soil microbiome, including soil microbial network complexity and stability, in...

Microbial residues contribute to the long-term stabilization of carbon in the entire soil profile, helping to regulate the climate of the planet; however, how sensitive these residues are to climatic seasonality remains virtually unknown, especially for deep soils across environmental gradients. Here, we investigated the changes of microbial residu...

Nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) are essential elements limiting plant–microbial growth in forest ecosystems. However, whether the pattern of plant–microbe nutrient limitation is consistent across forest biomes and the associated potential mechanisms remain largely unclear, limiting us to better understand the biogeochemical processes under future c...

Soils support an immense portion of Earth’s biodiversity and maintain multiple ecosystem functions which are essential for human well-being. Environmental thresholds are known to govern global vegetation patterns, but it is still unknown whether they can be used to predict the distribution of soil organisms and functions across global biomes. Using...

Background Rock-dwelling microorganisms are key players in ecosystem functioning of Antarctic ice free-areas. Yet, little is known about their diversity and ecology, and further still, viruses in these communities have been largely unexplored despite important roles related to host metabolism and nutrient cycling. To begin to address this, we pres...

Soil microbial inoculants are expected to boost crop productivity under climate change and soil degradation. However, the efficiency of native vs commercialized microbial inoculants in soils with different fertility and impacts on resident microbial communities remain unclear. We investigated the differential plant growth responses to native synthe...

Plant disease outbreaks pose significant risks to global food security and environmental sustainability worldwide, and result in the loss of primary productivity and biodiversity that negatively impact the environmental and socioeconomic conditions of affected regions. Climate change further increases outbreak risks by altering pathogen evolution a...

Soil mosses are among the most widely distributed organisms on land. Experiments and observations suggest that they contribute to terrestrial soil biodiversity and function, yet their ecological contribution to soil has never been assessed globally under natural conditions. Here we conducted the most comprehensive global standardized field study to...

1. Soil biota influences nutrient cycling and climate regulation and represents an important fraction of global biodiversity, yet we know very little about how this soil biota responds to habitat fragmentation and degradation of habitat quality. 2. We studied the response of different soil trophic groups (microbes and soil fauna), and their trophic...

Soil moisture is among the most important factors regulating soil biodiversity and functioning. Models forecast changes in the precipitation regime in many areas of the planet, but how these changes will influence soil functioning, and how biotic drivers modulate such effects, is far from being understood. We evaluated the responses of C and N flux...

Elucidating contents and drivers of soil bacterial and fungal biomass in contrasting land uses and climates at European scale is useful to define appropriate policies for the conservation of the ecosystem services that soil microorganisms provide. Here, we aimed to (i) quantify and compare bacterial and fungal biomass in 513 Eu-ropean soils collect...

Beneficial interactions with microorganisms are pivotal for crop performance and resilience. However, it remains unclear how heritable the microbiome is with respect to the host plant genotype and to what extent host genetic mechanisms can modulate plant-microbe interactions in the face of environmental stress. Here, we surveyed 3,168 root and rhiz...

Soil contamination is one of the main threats to ecosystem health and sustainability. Yet little is known about the extent to which soil contaminants differ between urban greenspaces and natural ecosystems. Here we show that urban greenspaces and adjacent natural areas (i.e., natural/semi-natural ecosystems) shared similar levels of multiple soil c...

Urban greenspaces support multiple nature-based services, many of which depend on the amount of soil carbon (C). Yet, the environmental drivers of soil C and its sensitivity to warming are still poorly understood globally. Here we use soil samples from 56 paired urban greenspaces and natural ecosystems worldwide and combine soil C concentration and...

Increasing the number of environmental stressors could decrease ecosystem functioning in soils. Yet this relationship has not been globally assessed outside laboratory experiments. Here, using two independent global standardized field surveys, and a range of natural and human factors, we test the relationship between the number of environmental str...

Aims Soil-borne pathogens severely damage the yield and quality of crops worldwide. Plant and soil microbiomes (e.g. in the rhizosphere) intimately interact with the plant, the pathogen and influence outcomes of disease infection. Investigation of how these microbiomes respond to disease infection is critical to develop solutions to control disease...

Aims Management can largely influence the sustainability and functionality of forest plantations. However, the role of biogas-slurry and biochar application in supporting soil’s multifunctionality during afforestation remains poorly understood. Methods We conducted a six-year field experiment to examine the responses of soil ecosystem multifunctio...

Glaciers cover nearly 10% of the Earth's surface and are unique biomes dominated by microbial communities that support key ecosystem processes. The melting of glaciers is among the most conspicuous consequences of global climate change, with impacts on microbial ecology and associated biogeochemistry. However, we are still missing an integrative un...

Introduction The microbiome inhabiting plant leaves is critical for plant health and productivity. Wild soybean ( Glycine soja ), which originated in China, is the progenitor of cultivated soybean ( Glycine max ). So far, the community structure and assembly mechanism of phyllosphere microbial community on G. soja were poorly understood. Methods H...

Aims: Soil-borne pathogens severely damage the yield and quality of crops worldwide. Plant and soil microbiomes (e.g. in the rhizosphere) intimately interact with the plant, the pathogen and influence outcomes of disease infection. Investigation of how these microbiomes respond to disease infection is critical to develop solutions to control diseas...

Across free-living organisms, the ecology and evolution of offspring morphology is shaped by interactions with biotic and abiotic environments during dispersal and early establishment in new habitats. However, the ecology and evolution of offspring morphology for symbiotic species has been largely ignored despite host-symbiont interactions being ub...

Antarctic deserts are among the driest and coldest ecosystems of the planet; there, some microbes survive under these extreme conditions inside porous rocks, forming the so-called endolithic communities. Yet the contribution of distinct rock traits to support complex microbial assemblies remains poorly determined. Here, we combined an extensive Ant...

Grasslands are integral to maintaining biodiversity and key ecosystem services under climate change. Plant and soil biodiversity, and their interactions, support the provision of multiple ecosystem functions (multifunctionality). However, whether plant and soil biodiversity explain unique, or shared, contributions to supporting multifunctionality a...

Fertilization and drought are two of the most important global change drivers that impacting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Soil organisms are among the fundamental biotic drivers of biogeochemical cycles and can play critical roles in mitigating global change. However, the contributions of soil macrofauna in explaining the re- sponses of GHG emis...

Soil microorganisms drive emissions of nitrous oxide from soils; this is a powerful greenhouse gas and the dominant ozone-depleting agent. N 2 O emissions can be partly predicted from soil properties and specific microbial groups, whereas a possible role of below-ground microbial interactions has largely been overlooked.

Beneficial interactions with microorganisms are pivotal for plant adaptation and fitness. Yet, the adaptive trajectories and genetic mechanisms underlying plant-microbiome interactions remain elusive. Here, we surveyed the root and rhizosphere microbiome of 129 accessions of Zea mays, sourced from diverse habitats and grown under control and differ...