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Contrasting patterns and drivers of soil bacterial and fungal diversity across a mountain gradient |
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| Authors: | Congcong Shen Anna Gunina Yu Luo Jianjun Wang Ji-Zheng He Yakov Kuzyakov Andreas Hemp Aimée T Classen Yuan Ge |
| Institution: | 1. State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100085 China;2. Department of Environmental Chemistry, University of Kassel, Nordbahnhof Strasse 1a, Witzenhausen, 32213 Germany;3. Institute of Soil and Water Resources and Environmental Science, Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Agricultural Resources and Environment, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058 China;4. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049 China;5. State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100085 China
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049 China;6. Department of Environmental Chemistry, University of Kassel, Nordbahnhof Strasse 1a, Witzenhausen, 32213 Germany Department of Soil Science of Temperate Ecosystems, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, 37077 Germany Department of Agricultural Soil Science, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, 37077 Germany Institute of Environmental Sciences, Kazan Federal University, Kazan, 420049 Russia Agro-Technological Institute, RUDN University, Moscow, 117198 Russia;7. Department of Plant Systematics, University of Bayreuth, Universit?tsstraße 30, Bayreuth, 95440 Germany;8. Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, 05405 USA Gund Institute for Environment, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, 05405 USA |
| Abstract: | Microbial elevational diversity patterns have been extensively studied, but their shaping mechanisms remain to be explored. Here, we examined soil bacterial and fungal diversity and community compositions across a 3.4 km elevational gradient (consists of five elevations) on Mt. Kilimanjaro located in East Africa. Bacteria and fungi had different diversity patterns across this extensive mountain gradient—bacterial diversity had a U shaped pattern while fungal diversity monotonically decreased. Random forest analysis revealed that pH (12.61% importance) was the most important factor affecting bacterial diversity, whereas mean annual temperature (9.84% importance) had the largest impact on fungal diversity, which was consistent with results obtained from mixed-effects model. Meanwhile, the diversity patterns and drivers of those diversity patterns differ among taxonomic groups (phyla/classes) within bacterial or fungal communities. Taken together, our study demonstrated that bacterial and fungal diversity and community composition responded differently to climate and edaphic properties along an extensive mountain gradient, and suggests that the elevational diversity patterns across microbial groups are determined by distinct environmental variables. These findings enhanced our understanding of the formation and maintenance of microbial diversity along elevation, as well as microbial responses to climate change in montane ecosystems. |
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