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Title: The Biogeographic Pattern of Microbial Functional Genes along an Altitudinal Gradient of the Tibetan Pasture

Journal Article · · Frontiers in Microbiology
 [1];  [1];  [2];  [1];  [3];  [1];  [4];  [5];  [6];  [7];  [8];  [1]
  1. Tsinghua Univ., Beijing (China)
  2. Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China); CAS Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Science, Beijing (China)
  3. Tsinghua Univ., Beijing (China); Univ. of Houston, TX (United States)
  4. Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Xining (China). Key Lab. of Adaptation and Evolution of Plateau Biota, Northwest Inst. of Plateau Biology
  5. Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Chengdu (China). Key Lab. of Environmental and Applied Microbiology, Environmental Microbiology Key Lab. of Sichuan Province, Chengdu Inst. of Biology
  6. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
  7. China Agricultural Univ., Beijing (China)
  8. Tsinghua Univ., Beijing (China); Univ. of Oklahoma, Norman, OK (United States). Inst. for Environmental Genomics and Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology; Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

As the highest place of the world, the Tibetan plateau is a fragile ecosystem. Given the importance of microbial communities in driving soil nutrient cycling, it is of interest to document the microbial biogeographic pattern here. We adopted a microarray-based tool named GeoChip 4.0 to investigate grassland microbial functional genes along an elevation gradient from 3200 to 3800 m above sea level open to free grazing by local herdsmen and wild animals. Interestingly, microbial functional diversities increase with elevation, so does the relative abundances of genes associated with carbon degradation, nitrogen cycling, methane production, cold shock and oxygen limitation. The range of Shannon diversities (10.27-10.58) showed considerably smaller variation than what was previously observed at ungrazed sites nearby (9.95-10.65), suggesting the important role of livestock grazing on microbial diversities. Closer examination showed that the dissimilarity of microbial community at our study sites increased with elevations, revealing an elevation-decay relationship of microbial functional genes. Both microbial functional diversity and the number of unique genes increased with elevations. Furthermore, we detected a tight linkage of greenhouse gas (CO2) and relative abundances of carbon cycling genes. Our biogeographic study provides insights on microbial functional diversity and soil biogeochemical cycling in Tibetan pastures.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC); National Science Foundation of China; Chinese Academy of Sciences
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1567071
Journal Information:
Frontiers in Microbiology, Vol. 8, Issue JUN; ISSN 1664-302X
Publisher:
Frontiers Research FoundationCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 20 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Figures / Tables (5)