Abstract

Microorganisms have a pivotal role in the functioning of ecosystems. Recent studies have shown that microbial communities harbour keystone taxa, which drive community composition and function irrespective of their abundance. In this Opinion article, we propose a definition of keystone taxa in microbial ecology and summarize over 200 microbial keystone taxa that have been identified in soil, plant and marine ecosystems, as well as in the human microbiome. We explore the importance of keystone taxa and keystone guilds for microbiome structure and functioning and discuss the factors that determine their distribution and activities.

Keywords

Keystone speciesMicrobiomeBiologyEcologyTaxonEcosystemMicrobial ecologyEcosystem engineerAbundance (ecology)Microbial population biologyBacteriaBioinformatics

MeSH Terms

AnimalsBacteriaEnvironmental MicrobiologyHumansMicrobiota

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Publication Info

Year
2018
Type
review
Volume
16
Issue
9
Pages
567-576
Citations
2580
Access
Closed

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Cite This

Samiran Banerjee, Klaus Schlaeppi, Marcel G. A. van der Heijden (2018). Keystone taxa as drivers of microbiome structure and functioning. Nature Reviews Microbiology , 16 (9) , 567-576. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41579-018-0024-1

Identifiers

DOI
10.1038/s41579-018-0024-1
PMID
29789680

Data Quality

Data completeness: 81%