Chen, Ruirui, Luo, Shuhong, Feng, Youzhi, Maestre, Fernando T., Sáez-Sandino, Tadeo, Gross, Nicolas, Le Bagousse-Pinguet, Yoann, Ochoa, Victoria, Gozalo, Beatriz, Guirado, Emilio, García-Gómez, Miguel, Valencia, Enrique, Asensio, Sergio, Martínez-Valderrama, Jaime, Mendoza, Betty Josefina, Abades, Sebastian, Alfaro, Fernando, Barrett, Matt, Berdugo, Miguel, Pastor, José Luis Blanco, Blaum, Niels, Boldgiv, Bazartseren, Bowker, Matthew, Castro, Helena, Chu, Haiyan, Cutler, Nick A., Dai, Zhongmin, Deák, Balázs, Durán, Jorge, Espinosa, Carlos Ivan, Fajardo, Alex, Fan, Kunkun, Foronda, Ana, Fraser, Lauchlan H., Geissler, Katja, Grebenc, Tine, Moltanvan, Elizabeth Gusman, Hart, Stephen C., Kindermann, Liana, Köbel, Melanie, Laanisto, Lauri, le Roux, Peter C., Liancourt, Pierre, Linstädter, Anja, Louw, Michelle A., Macek, Petr, Maggs-Kölling, Gillian, Makhalanyane, Thulani P., Manzaneda, Antonio J., Marais, Eugene, Montesinos, Daniel, Mora, Juan P., Moreno, Gerardo, Munson, Seth M., Muñoz-Rojas, Miriam, Nair, Girish R., Neuhauser, Sigrid, Nunes, Alice, Plaza, Cesar, Pueyo, Yolanda, Rey, Pedro J., Rey, Ana, Ríos, Asunción de los, Rodríguez, Alexandra, Lozano, Borja Rodriguez, Roman, Raul, Ruppert, Jan C., Salah, Ayman, Singh, Jay, Throop, Heather L., Travers, Samantha, Nahberger, Tina Unuk, Uuganbayar, Munkhbat, Valkó, Orsolya, Wang, Lixin, Williams, Mark A., Xiong, Chao, Xu, Jianming, Zaady, Eli, Ma, Bin, Singh, Brajesh K., Delgado-Baquerizo, Manuel, UNSPECIFIED, and UNSPECIFIED (2026) Functional restructuring of the global soil microbiome under multiple stressors. Nature Communications. (In Press)

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Abstract

Microbes, as the planet’s most abundant and diverse organisms, drive soil functions globally and are vulnerable to environmental stressors triggered by global change. Yet, knowledge regarding the impacts of multiple environmental stressors on their functional profiles as well as the consequences for soil functionality largely remains unknown. Here, we analyze two global-scale datasets including information on soil metagenomics and multiple environmental stressors. We find that across terrestrial ecosystems worldwide, up to 60% of all functional genes significantly shift when soil microbes experience the high-level of concurrent stressors. In this regard, the relative abundances of genes involved in microbial growth are negatively linked to the increasing number of stressors. Conversely, those genes linked to stress resistance and energy production exhibit positive responses. Taken together, our findings highlight a significant restructuring of global soil functional microbiomes in response to multiple environmental stressors. Consequently, such restructuring drives community-level shifts in matter and energy reallocations, thereby impacting the maintenance of soil functionality under the projected global change.

Item ID:	92392
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	2041-1723
Copyright Information:	© The Author(s) 2026. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
Date Deposited:	18 Sep 2026 06:25
FoR Codes:	41 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES > 4101 Climate change impacts and adaptation > 410102 Ecological impacts of climate change and ecological adaptation @ 30% 31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3103 Ecology > 310308 Terrestrial ecology @ 30% 41 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES > 4106 Soil sciences > 410603 Soil biology @ 40%
SEO Codes:	18 ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT > 1806 Terrestrial systems and management > 180605 Soils @ 50% 18 ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT > 1806 Terrestrial systems and management > 180606 Terrestrial biodiversity @ 50%
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