Fig. 1

Schematic illustration of the experimental design. The soil microbial community was manipulated using a top-down approach in two steps. Step 1 consisted in a removal approach during which soil suspensions were either subjected to one out of 18 removal treatments (R, n=10) to deplete various microbial groups or were not treated (control, C, n=10). Step 2 consisted in a coalescence approach during which soils from 10 removal treatments were either mixed with themselves (R+R) or with the soil from the non-treated microcosms (R+C) and non-treated soil was mixed with itself (C+C) in 1/10 v/v sterile soil (n=10). Values in parentheses indicate the number of biological replicates