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Article

Green Roof Substrate Microbes Compose a Core Community of Stress-Tolerant Taxa

1
Centre for Environmental Sciences, Zoology: Biodiversity and Toxicology, Hasselt University, 3590 Diepenbeek, Belgium
2
Centre for Environmental Sciences, Environmental Biology, Hasselt University, 3590 Diepenbeek, Belgium
3
PXL BIO-Research, 3590 Diepenbeek, Belgium
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Microorganisms 2024, 12(7), 1261; https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms12071261
Submission received: 27 March 2024 / Revised: 10 June 2024 / Accepted: 20 June 2024 / Published: 21 June 2024
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Urban Microbiome)

Abstract

Extensive green roofs provide for many ecosystem services in urban environments. The efficacy of these services is influenced by the vegetation structure. Despite their key role in plant performance and productivity, but also their contribution to nitrogen fixation or carbon sequestration, green roof microbial communities have received little attention so far. No study included a spatiotemporal aspect to investigate the core microbiota residing in the substrates of extensive green roofs, although these key taxa are hypothesized to be amongst the most ecologically important taxa. Here, we identified the core microbiota residing in extensive green roof substrates and investigated whether microbial community composition is affected by the vegetation that is planted on extensive green roofs. Eleven green roofs from three different cities in Flanders (Belgium), planted either with a mixture of grasses, wildflowers and succulents (Sedum spp.; Sedum–herbs–grasses roofs) or solely species of Sedum (Sedum–moss roofs), were seasonally sampled to investigate prokaryotic and fungal communities via metabarcoding. Identifying the key microbial taxa revealed that most taxa are dominant phylotypes in soils worldwide. Many bacterial core taxa are capable of nitrogen fixation, and most fungal key taxa are stress-tolerant saprotrophs, endophytes, or both. Considering that soil microbes adapted to the local edaphic conditions have been found to improve plant fitness, further investigation of the core microbiome is warranted to determine the extent to which these stress-tolerant microbes are beneficial for the vegetational layer. Although Sedum–herbs–grasses roofs contained more plant species than Sedum–moss roofs, we observed no discriminant microbial communities between both roof types, likely due to sharing the same substrate textures and the vegetational layers that became more similar throughout time. Future studies are recommended to comprehensively characterize the vegetational layer and composition to examine the primary drivers of microbial community assembly processes.
Keywords: bacteria; fungi; microbes; urban; green roof; aeromicrobiome bacteria; fungi; microbes; urban; green roof; aeromicrobiome

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MDPI and ACS Style

Van Dijck, T.; Stevens, V.; Steenaerts, L.; Thijs, S.; Van Mechelen, C.; Artois, T.; Rineau, F. Green Roof Substrate Microbes Compose a Core Community of Stress-Tolerant Taxa. Microorganisms 2024, 12, 1261. https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms12071261

AMA Style

Van Dijck T, Stevens V, Steenaerts L, Thijs S, Van Mechelen C, Artois T, Rineau F. Green Roof Substrate Microbes Compose a Core Community of Stress-Tolerant Taxa. Microorganisms. 2024; 12(7):1261. https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms12071261

Chicago/Turabian Style

Van Dijck, Thomas, Vincent Stevens, Laure Steenaerts, Sofie Thijs, Carmen Van Mechelen, Tom Artois, and François Rineau. 2024. "Green Roof Substrate Microbes Compose a Core Community of Stress-Tolerant Taxa" Microorganisms 12, no. 7: 1261. https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms12071261

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