TY - JOUR
T1 - Microbial diversity in Chinese temperate steppe: Unveiling the most influential environmental drivers
AU - Tu, Bo
AU - Domene, Xavier
AU - Yao, Minjie
AU - Li, Chaonan
AU - Zhang, Shiheng
AU - Kou, Yongping
AU - Wang, Yansu
AU - Li, Xiangzhen
N1 - Funding Information:
We want to thank the following people for the help in sampling: Guiqing Xu, Kaihui Feng, Qingguo Cui, Yongfei Bai of ChineseAcademy of Sciences; Taogetao Baoyin of University of Inner Mongolia; Xiaoping Xin, Baorui Chen, Xiangyang Hou and Zhen Wang of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31570496, 41371268 and 31670503), Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB15010303) and China Biodiversity Observation Networks (Sino BON).
Publisher Copyright:
© FEMS 2017. All rights reserved.
PY - 2017/4/1
Y1 - 2017/4/1
N2 - Temperate steppe is extremely sensitive to the current global changes. However, what are the main environmental variables driving microbial diversity in temperate steppe are still unclear, something that impairs doing predictions about the expected effects of global changes on microbe-mediated ecological functions. This is why, in this study, the relationship between soil microbial diversity and environmental variables in Chinese temperate steppe is investigated. In this study, significant correlations between soil bacterial α-diversity and mean annual precipitation and the aridity index were observed at the whole region scale. No clear correlations between microbial α-diversities and other measured environmental variables were found at the whole temperate steppe region and sub-regions. On the other hand, β-diversity was strongly related to spatial variables and climate variables for bacteria, while spatial variables and soil organic matters were more related with fungal β-diversity. In addition, the mean annual temperature was highly correlated with microbial β-diversity at different spatial scales, suggesting that it could be a good single predictor of soil microbial assemblage in temperate steppe. β-Diversities are more explained by combined effect of local environmental variables based on variation partitioning analysis, reflecting the community assemblage is more likely driven by species sorting through environmental filtering.
AB - Temperate steppe is extremely sensitive to the current global changes. However, what are the main environmental variables driving microbial diversity in temperate steppe are still unclear, something that impairs doing predictions about the expected effects of global changes on microbe-mediated ecological functions. This is why, in this study, the relationship between soil microbial diversity and environmental variables in Chinese temperate steppe is investigated. In this study, significant correlations between soil bacterial α-diversity and mean annual precipitation and the aridity index were observed at the whole region scale. No clear correlations between microbial α-diversities and other measured environmental variables were found at the whole temperate steppe region and sub-regions. On the other hand, β-diversity was strongly related to spatial variables and climate variables for bacteria, while spatial variables and soil organic matters were more related with fungal β-diversity. In addition, the mean annual temperature was highly correlated with microbial β-diversity at different spatial scales, suggesting that it could be a good single predictor of soil microbial assemblage in temperate steppe. β-Diversities are more explained by combined effect of local environmental variables based on variation partitioning analysis, reflecting the community assemblage is more likely driven by species sorting through environmental filtering.
KW - Environmental drivers
KW - Microbial diversity
KW - Spatial scale
KW - Temperate steppe
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85021856141&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1093/femsec/fix031
DO - 10.1093/femsec/fix031
M3 - Article
C2 - 28334191
SN - 0168-6496
VL - 93
JO - FEMS Microbiology Ecology
JF - FEMS Microbiology Ecology
IS - 4
ER -