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| Relative abundance of fungal functional groups from soils collected near the individual plant species listed on the left side of each bar. The dashed line references the start of the lowest unclassified grouping because the x-axis does not start at zero.
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Bioswales and other forms of green infrastructure can be effective means to reduce environmental stresses in urban ecosystems; however, few studies have evaluated the ecology of these systems, or the role that plant selection and microbial assembly play in their function. For the current study, we examined the relationship between plant transpirati...
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... guilds of fungi were assigned with a total of 1994 of the 3945 fungal OTUs assigned to functional guilds (Figure 3). There were no significant differences in the relative abundances of individual functional groups across plant species; however, soils collected beside the Panicum species had significantly higher relative abundances of AM fungi than the other four plant species (Figure 4). ...
Citations
... Rain gardens absorb rainwater redirected from the impervious surfaces around them, an effect largely governed by substrate type, but mediated by plant diversity (Yuan et al., 2017). Planting media affect the physical retention and infiltration of rainwater as well as influencing plant growth and physiology through nutrient cycling and microbial processes (e.g., see Brodsky et al., 2019 for a study of microbial and edaphic factors on the bioswales used in this study). While rain garden water storage capacity is governed by the volume and type of substrate, how fast it dries out is a function of the media, drainage, evaporation, and plant community water use (Johnston, 2011; Figure 1). ...
Green infrastructure's capacity to mitigate urban environmental problems, like heat island effects and excessive stormwater runoff, is partially governed by its plant community. Traditionally, green infrastructure design has focused on engineered aspects, such as substrate and drainage, rather than on the properties of its living components. Since the functioning of these plant assemblages is controlled by ecophysiological processes that differ by species, the identity and relative abundance of the species used will influence green infrastructure performance. We used trait‐based modeling to derive principles for the effective composition of green infrastructure plant assemblages, parameterizing our model using the vegetation and ecophysiological traits of the species within New York City rain gardens. Focusing on two plant traits that influence rain garden performance, leaf surface temperature and stomatal conductance, we simulated the cumulative temperature and transpiration for plant communities of differing species composition and diversity. The outcomes of the model demonstrate that plant species composition, species identity, selection effects, and interspecific complementarity increase green infrastructure performance in much the way biodiversity affects ecosystem functioning in natural systems. More diverse assemblages resulted in more consistent transpiration and surface temperatures, with the former showing a positive, saturating curve as diversity increased. While the dominant factors governing individual species leaf temperature were abiotic, transpiration was more influential at the community level, suggesting that plants within diverse communities may be cooler in aggregate than any individual species on its own. This implies green infrastructure should employ a variety of vegetation; particularly plants with different statures and physical attributes, such as low‐growing ground covers, erect herbaceous perennials, and shrubs.
... Further research to effectively scale transpiration rates in both space and time would contribute to a clearer understanding of the role of vegetation relative to the whole system water budget (Sanchez et al., 2016). Brodsky et al. (2019) used a holistic ecological approach to investigate plantsoil-microbe-biogeochemistry connections in bioswales in New York City. They found wide variation in transpiration rates among plants, which was expected. ...
Green infrastructure (GI) is a strategy to support sustainability, resilience, and climate mitigation/adaptation in the built environment. GI has been in use for several decades although under a variety of names, and continues to evolve a more holistic and multifunctional focus to address all four categories of ecosystem services (provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural). To address ecosystem services, GI can be practiced to guide urban form, spatial structure, and aesthetics – guided by the movement of urban water in cities. To support sustainability and resilience goals, GI requires a transdisciplinary process including the co-production of knowledge and a robust culture of evidence-based decision-making based on GI performance monitoring. A culture of learning-by-doing is emerging that conceives urban design and planning as experiments – capable of addressing the “moving target” of climate change in cities. These design experiments require that performance monitoring is consistent and robust – and that the findings are subsequently applied to decision-making in an adaptive mode. An application of the theories and practices associated with GI in the Sao Paulo, Brazil watershed of Jaguaré is presented as an example of the current state of practice – and identifies questions and research needs for future applications.
... Other studies have surmised that increases in stomatal conductance represent increased transpiration [44]. Observed differences in stomatal conductance between species were noted as suggesting that not all species will contribute equally to bioswale function [44,47]. These results support that species selection in bioswale design will play an important role in determining the ability of GI to manage stormwater and minimize its contribution to combined sewer systems [59]. ...
... These results support that species selection in bioswale design will play an important role in determining the ability of GI to manage stormwater and minimize its contribution to combined sewer systems [59]. Additional considerations to the relationship between transpiration and belowground microbial communities are needed [47]. ...
Stormwater management is of great importance in large shrinking cities with aging and outdated infrastructure. Maintenance of vegetated areas, particularly referred to as green infrastructure, is often aimed at mitigating flooding and the urban heat island effect by stormwater storage and evaporative cooling, respectively. This approach has been applied in large cities as a cost-effective and eco-friendly solution. However, the ecohydrological processes and how the ecohydrology influences the function of green infrastructure and its potential to provide those ecosystem services are not well understood. In this study, continuous field measurements including air temperature, stomatal conductance, and phenocam images were taken in a 308 m2 bioswale retrofitted into a 4063 m2 parking lot on the Wayne State University campus in Detroit, Michigan over a two-year period. Our results suggest that plant characteristics such as water use efficiency impact the ecohydrological processes within bioswales and that retrofitted bioswales will need to be adapted over time to meet environmental demands to allow for full and sustained success. Therefore, projected shifts in precipitation regime change are expected to affect the performance of green infrastructure, and each bioswale needs to be developed and engineered to be able to adapt to changing rainfall patterns.
... Cfa. Engineered soils used in bioswales can serve as effective reservoirs of functional microbial biodiversity [112], which can be affected by the type of planted vegetation [113]. ...
... Biodiversity: The expansion of biodiversity and its potential benefits rank second among ecosystem services in terms of research. SUDS can support habitats and life [112,199], despite their physical isolation [50], and can sometimes play a biodiversity role similar to that of natural lakes [155,156,202,203], but their biota depends on materials and plants [113] used in the infrastructure. ...
Urban green infrastructure such as sustainable urban drainage systems are potential providers of ecosystem services. This paper reviews the field studies that empirically verify the potential benefits of SUDS. The cultural, provisioning, supporting, and regulating ecosystem services investigated in real cases have been studied and classified according to climatology (except for the control of urban hydrology, which has been widely corroborated). Although successful cases of runoff decontamination are numerous, there is heterogeneity in the results of the systems beyond those associated with climatic differences. The other ecosystem services have not been as widely studied, giving very variable and even negative results in some cases such as climate change control (in some instances, these techniques can emit greenhouse gases). Installations in temperate climates are, by far, the most studied. These services derive from the biological processes developed in green infrastructure and they depend on climate, so it would be advisable to carry out specific studies that could serve as the basis for a design that optimizes potential ecosystem services, avoiding possible disservices.
... Similar to many other plant microbial communities, the switchgrass microbial community has been shown to influence plant function, and its composition differs to varying degrees by environmental characteristics [18][19][20][21], plant compartment (shoots vs. roots) [2,16,22,23], climate and seasonality [16,24,25], and switchgrass genotype [2,26]. As a biofuel crop, switchgrass plantings are commonly treated, for example, with soil amendments; however, few studies have investigated the effect of such management practices on the switchgrass microbial community, especially on the phyllosphere microbial community. ...
Switchgrass is a promising feedstock for biofuel production, with potential for leveraging its native microbial community to increase productivity and resilience to environmental stress. Here, we characterized the bacterial, archaeal and fungal diversity of the leaf microbial community associated with four switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) genotypes, subjected to two harvest treatments (annual harvest and unharvested control), and two fertilization levels (fertilized and unfertilized control), based on 16S rRNA gene and internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region amplicon sequencing. Leaf surface and leaf endosphere bacterial communities were significantly different with Alphaproteobacteria enriched in the leaf surface and Gammaproteobacteria and Bacilli enriched in the leaf endosphere. Harvest treatment significantly shifted presence/absence and abundances of bacterial and fungal leaf surface community members: Gammaproteobacteria were significantly enriched in harvested and Alphaproteobacteria were significantly enriched in unharvested leaf surface communities. These shifts were most prominent in the upland genotype DAC where the leaf surface showed the highest enrichment of Gammaproteobacteria, including taxa with 100% identity to those previously shown to have phytopathogenic function. Fertilization did not have any significant impact on bacterial or fungal communities. We also identified bacterial and fungal taxa present in both the leaf surface and leaf endosphere across all genotypes and treatments. These core taxa were dominated by Methylobacterium, Enterobacteriaceae, and Curtobacterium, in addition to Aureobasidium, Cladosporium, Alternaria and Dothideales. Local core leaf bacterial and fungal taxa represent promising targets for plant microbe engineering and manipulation across various genotypes and harvest treatments. Our study showcases, for the first time, the significant impact that harvest treatment can have on bacterial and fungal taxa inhabiting switchgrass leaves and the need to include this factor in future plant microbial community studies.
... Microbial biogeography is controlled primarily by "edaphic variables" [69]. As, in urban areas, the soil physical (moisture and texture) and chemical properties (pH, solid minerals, and organic matter) can influence microorganism communities [70,71]. Moreover, microbial diversity has a positive correlation with human population density (as a proxy of anthropogenic activity) [72], which always companies with the increase in species richness of some taxonomic group [73], although this relationship is still unknown. ...
Urban ecosystems are composed of biological components (plants, animals, microorganisms, and other forms of life) and physical components (soil, water, air, climate, and topography) which interact together. In terms of “Urban Green infrastructure (UGI)”, these components are in a combination of natural and constructed materials of urban space that have an important role in metabolic processes, biodiversity, and ecosystem resiliency underlying valuable ecosystem services. The increase in the world’s population in urban areas is a driving force to threat the environmental resources and public health in cities; thus, the necessity to adopt sustainable practices for communities are crucial for improving and maintaining urban environmental health. This chapter emphasizes the most important issues associated with urban ecosystem, highlighting the recent findings as a guide for future UGI management, which can support city planners, public health officials, and architectural designers to quantify cities more responsive, safer places for people.
... Several studies focus specifically on mycorrhizal fungi (i.e., arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi [AMF] and sebacinoid fungi) present in roots or root-influenced soil, although sequencing, culturing, and microscopy efforts suggest that mycorrhizal fungi make up a small portion of switchgrass microbiome taxa overall (Emery et al. 2018;Ghimire et al. , 2009Revillini et al. 2019;Singer et al. 2019a). Dominant mycorrhizal genera sequenced from roots and root-influenced soil include Glomus, Rhizophagus, and Septoglomus (Brodsky et al. 2019;Emery et al. 2018;Revillini et al. 2019). Although some studies use methods to target mycorrhizal fungi specifically, most fungal culturing methods and amplicon primer sets used for fungal community profiling are designed for whole-fungal-community analysis and are not optimized for mycorrhizal fungi. ...
... Therefore, studies employing these methods may underreport the abundance and diversity of this group (Řezáčová et al. 2016). The few culture-independent studies to investigate nonmycorrhizal fungal communities found species of Dothideomycetes and Sordariomycetes in high relative abundance in switchgrass roots (Singer et al. 2019a) whereas, in switchgrass-influenced soil, members of the classes Agaricomycetes, Archaeorhizomycetes, Dothideomycetes, Mortierellomycetes, Pezizomycetes, Sordariomycetes, and Tremellomycetes predominate (Brodsky et al. 2019;Rodrigues et al. 2017;Sawyer et al. 2019;Singer et al. 2019a). To date, no culture-independent studies describe fungal communities inhabiting switchgrass shoot tissues. ...
... Where switchgrass is grown in intra-and interspecific plant mixtures, plant diversity is positively associated with b diversity of the soil bacterial community Revillini et al. 2019). Switchgrass appears to harbor a less diverse AMF community than other tallgrass prairie plants or grass mixtures but a more abundant and diverse AMF community than monocultures of maize, Miscanthus spp., and bioswale plants (Brejda et al. 1993;Brodsky et al. 2019;Emery et al. 2017Emery et al. , 2018Eom et al. 2000;Liang et al. 2016;Oates et al. 2016;Revillini et al. 2019;Singer et al. 2019b). Interestingly, Jesus et al. (2016) found that plant community composition was a stronger driver of switchgrass microbiome structure at older sites, suggesting that plant-driven effects on the microbiome develop over time and may not be detected during early years of plant establishment. ...
Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) has been championed as a promising bioenergy crop due to its high productivity across a wide environmental range. The switchgrass microbiome—including bacteria, archaea, fungi, and other microbiota inhabiting soil and plant tissues—can influence plant function substantially. We conducted a review of the literature investigating switchgrass microbiome structure, key functional roles, and taxa isolated from field-grown plants. While site conditions and plant compartment (i.e., location within shoots, roots, or root-influenced soil) appear to be the strongest drivers of switchgrass microbiome structure, the microbiome is also shaped by climate, season, and host genotype. Studies comparing across plant species show that the switchgrass microbiome is more similar to the microbiomes of other perennial plants than to the microbiomes of annual plants. Members of the switchgrass microbiome confer several benefits to plants. Most notably, mycorrhizal fungi can increase plant biomass many-fold, associative N-fixing bacteria can provide a substantial portion of the plant’s nitrogen demand, and fungal endophytes can improve plant tolerance to drought. Although the fungi and bacteria cultured from switchgrass represent only a portion of the microbiome, these serve as a valuable resource for researchers interested in investigating functional outcomes of the switchgrass microbiome. We highlight areas where additional research is necessary for a more comprehensive understanding of switchgrass microbiome structure, function, and potential to enhance sustainable bioenergy production. Key gaps include the role of understudied organisms (e.g., viruses, microeukaryotes, and non-mycorrhizal fungi), multitrophic relationships, mechanisms underpinning switchgrass-microbiome interactions, and field-scale validation of experimental findings.
Roadside green swales have emerged as popular stormwater management infrastructure in urban areas, serving to mitigate stormwater pollution and reduce urban surface water discharge. However, there is a limited understanding of the various types, structures, and functions of swales, as well as the potential challenges they may face in the future. In recent years, China has witnessed a surge in the adoption of roadside green swales, especially as part of the prestigious Sponge City Program (SCP). These green swales play a crucial role in controlling stormwater pollution and conserving urban water resources by effectively removing runoff pollutants, including suspended solids, nitrogen, and phosphorus. This review critically examines recent research findings, identifies key knowledge gaps, and presents future recommendations for designing green swales for effective stormwater management, with a particular emphasis on ongoing major Chinese infrastructure projects. Despite the growing global interest in bioswales and their significance in urban development, China’s current classification of such features lacks a clear definition or specific consideration of bioswales. Furthermore, policymakers have often underestimated the adverse environmental effects of road networks, as reflected in existing laws and planning documents. This review argues that the construction and maintenance of roadside green swales should be primarily based on three critical factors: Wellthought- out road planning, suitable construction conditions, and sustainable long-term funding. The integration of quantitative environmental standards into road planning is essential to effectively address the challenge of pollution from rainfall runoff. To combat pollution associated with roads, a comprehensive assessment of potential pollution loadings should be carried out, guiding the appropriate design and construction of green swales, with a particular focus on addressing the phenomenon of first flush. One of the major challenges faced in sustaining funds for ongoing maintenance after swale construction. To address this issue, the implementation of a green finance platform is proposed. Such a platform would help ensure the availability of funds for continuous maintenance, thus maximizing the long-term effectiveness of green swales in stormwater management. Ultimately, the findings of this review aim to assist municipal governments in enhancing and implementing future urban road designs and SCP developments, incorporating effective green swale strategies.
