<b>Deciphering the dynamic responses of soil bacterial community assembly and ecological strategies to extreme environmental changes</b>

We investigated bacterial community assembly dynamics under different perturbations (four pH gradients and two temperatures) and characterized the life-history strategies of divergent environmental-response taxa. Results showed that extreme temperature/pH enhanced deterministic processes, reduced diversity and network complexity by decreasing neutral taxa, and high temperature diminished the network complexity-assembly association.

Environmental stress intensified community within-group variation to drive assembly. We also show that bacteria used distinct life-history strategies to cope with environmental stress, with enhanced resource acquisition and stress resistance traits at the cost of growth yield traits. Thermophilic taxa (higher rrn copy numbers, genome sizes, and GC content) and basophilic taxa (higher rrn copy numbers and genomes) adopted distinct physiological traits compared to neutral taxa, and these traits are crucial for adaptation to extreme environments and mediate investments in YAS strategies.