Figure 1.

Conceptual illustration of hypothesized patterns of microbial communities under low (a) and high (b) dispersal rates, assembled under two environments (symbol colors). Selection strength differs by environment, with low quality litter substrates (orange) exerting a stronger selection pressure on microbial communities than those that are high quality (blue) and easier to degrade. We hypothesize that within- and between-group distance among microbial communities will be influenced by dispersal rate (comparing a and b) and selection strength (comparing colors in b).