The Role of Phosphorus Limitation in Shaping Soil Bacterial Communities and Their Metabolic Capabilities

Phosphorus (P) is an essential nutrient that is often in limited supply, with P availability constraining biomass production in many terrestrial ecosystems. Despite decades of work on plant responses to P deficiency and the importance of soil microbes to terrestrial ecosystem processes, how soil microbes respond to, and cope with, P deficiencies remains poorly understood. We studied 583 soils from two independent sample sets that each span broad natural gradients in extractable soil P and collectively represent diverse biomes, including tropical forests, temperate grasslands, and arid shrublands.