Title: Soil microbial beta-diversity is linked with compositional variation in aboveground plant biomass in a semi-arid grassland

Abstract

Exploring biodiversity linkages between above-ground and below-ground biota is a core topic in ecology, and can have implications on our understanding of ecosystem process stability. Yet, this topic still remains underexplored. Here, we explored diversity linkages, in terms of both alpha- and beta- diversity, between plant and top soil microbial communities in a semi-arid grassland ecosystem. Soil microbial community structure was assessed based on both 16S rRNA and functional genes, and plant community composition was evaluated by traditional “species composition” and a newly-defined “biomass composition”, which includes the information on the biomass of each species. The bacterial alpha-diversity, expressed as the richness and Shannon diversity of 16S rRNA genes, was significantly correlated with plant species richness and Shannon diversity, whereas the alpha-diversity of microbial functional genes showed marginal association with total plant biomass. Microbial beta-diversity, evaluated by 16S rRNA genes, showed close relationship with plant beta-diversity estimated by both “species composition” and “biomass composition”, while the microbial beta-diversity based on functional genes was only associated with the compositional variation in above-ground plant biomass. These results showed that the differences in metabolic potential of soil microbial communities, which is closely related with ecosystem functions, can be better predicted by the variationmore » of plant-derived resources returned to soil, than merely by the species composition of the macro-organism communities.« less

Authors:

Li, Hui ^[1]; Xu, Zhuwen ^[2]; Yan, Qingyun ^[3]; Yang, Shan ^[2]; Van Nostrand, Joy D. ^[4]; Wang, Zhirui ^[2]; He, Zhili ^[3]; Zhou, Jizhong ^[5]; Jiang, Yong  ^[2];

• Search DOE PAGES for author "Jiang, Yong"
• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0001-7518-5810"

Deng, Ye ^[6]

---

+ Show Author Affiliations

1. Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Shenyang (China). Inst. of Applied Ecology, Key Lab. of Forest Ecology and Management; Univ. of Oklahoma, Norman, OK (United States). Inst. for Environmental Genomics and Dept. of Microbiology and Plant Biology
2. Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Shenyang (China). Inst. of Applied Ecology, Key Lab. of Forest Ecology and Management
3. Univ. of Oklahoma, Norman, OK (United States). Inst. for Environmental Genomics and Dept. of Microbiology and Plant Biology; Sun Yat-Sen Univ., Guangzhou, (China). Environmental Microbiome Research Center, School of Environmental Science and Engineering
4. Univ. of Oklahoma, Norman, OK (United States). Inst. for Environmental Genomics and Dept. of Microbiology and Plant Biology
5. Univ. of Oklahoma, Norman, OK (United States). Inst. for Environmental Genomics and Dept. of Microbiology and Plant Biology; Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Earth Sciences Div.; Tsinghua Univ., Beijing (China). School of Environment, State Key Joint Lab. of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control
6. Univ. of Oklahoma, Norman, OK (United States). Inst. for Environmental Genomics and Dept. of Microbiology and Plant Biology; Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China). Reseach Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Key Lab. of Environmental Biotechnology

Publication Date:

Tue Dec 19 00:00:00 EST 2017

Research Org.:

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Org.:

USDOE Office of Science (SC)

OSTI Identifier:

1567115

Grant/Contract Number:  

AC02-05CH11231

Resource Type:

Accepted Manuscript

Journal Name:

Plant and Soil

Additional Journal Information:

Journal Volume: 423; Journal Issue: 1-2; Journal ID: ISSN 0032-079X

Publisher:

Springer

Country of Publication:

United States

Language:

English

Subject:

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES; 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; aboveground-belowground diversity linkages; 16s rRNA; soil bacterial diversity; microbial functional gene diversity; GeoChip functional gene aray