Microbial breakdown of organic material is one of the most important processes on earth, yet enormous knowledge gaps exist about its controls. We demonstrate that a universal, inter-kingdom microbial network assembles in response to nutrient-rich, terrestrial mammalian decomposition, despite selection effects of location, climate and season. We created the first metagenome-assembled genome library from mammalian decomposition-associated soils and combined it with metabolomics to identify a microbial decomposer network that interacts by cross-feeding to efficiently metabolize labile decomposition products. The key fungal and bacterial decomposers appear unique to the breakdown of terrestrial cadavers, and are rare in relative abundance across non-decomposition environments. Blow flies are suggested as an important decomposer vector and the observed lockstep of microbial interactions underlies a robust microbial forensic tool for predicting the time since death. 

Version 3 Files: DRAM_output.zip = DRAM output for MAGs as in Burcham et al. 2024 final_MAGs.zip = 257 MAGs used in Burcham et al. 2024 bin_taxonomy_277.xlsx = updated GTDB-tk (v2.4.0, r220) taxonomy of 277 MAG in Seitz et al. 2024 277_MAGs.zip = individual .fa files for 277 MAGs as in Seitz et al. 2024

This research was primarily funded by the National Institutes of Justice, NIJ 2016-DN-BX-0194, 2015-DN-BX-K016. Additional information can be found at https://github.com/Metcalf-Lab/2016-2020-PMI-3-facility-multi-omics-study-Burcham-et-al.