Linking ecological strategies to niche breadth: interpretable machine learning unravels community patterns of nirS-type aerobic denitrifiers along oxygen gradients in drinking water reservoirs

Key Points

• Community patterns of nirS-type aerobic denitrifiers along oxygen gradients reveal insights into ecological strategies.
• Machine learning reveals that niche breadth significantly correlates with ecological strategies across multiple sites.
• Observational analysis across drinking water reservoirs highlights the role of oxygen gradients in community composition.
• Findings support the potential for machine learning to enhance our understanding of ecological interactions in water systems.