State Key Laboratory of Soil and Sustainable Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 210008, Nanjing, China.
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100049, Beijing, China.
Nat Commun. 2020 Dec 17;11(1):6406. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-20271-4.
Body size is a key life-history trait that influences community assembly by affecting how ecological processes operate at the organism level. However, the extent to which the relative influences of ecological processes mediate the assembly of differentially sized soil organisms is still unknown. Here, we investigate the community assembly of differentially sized soil microorganisms and microfauna using a continental-scale sampling effort combined with a global-scale meta-analysis. Our results reveal a general relationship between organism body size and the stochastic-deterministic balance operating on community assembly. The smallest microorganisms (bacteria) are relatively more influenced by dispersal-based stochastic processes, while larger ones (fungi, protists and nematodes) are more structured by selection-based deterministic processes. This study elucidates a significant and consistent relationship between an organism life-history trait and how distinct ecological processes operate in mediating their respective community assemblages, thus providing a better understanding of the mechanisms supporting soil biodiversity.
体型是一个关键的生活史特征，通过影响生态过程在个体水平上的作用方式来影响群落组装。然而，生态过程的相对影响在多大程度上调节不同体型的土壤生物的组装仍然未知。在这里，我们通过大陆尺度的采样工作和全球尺度的元分析，研究了不同体型土壤微生物和微型动物的群落组装。我们的结果揭示了生物体体型与影响群落组装的随机-确定性平衡之间的一般关系。最小的微生物（细菌）相对更多地受到基于扩散的随机过程的影响，而较大的微生物（真菌、原生动物和线虫）则更多地受到基于选择的确定性过程的影响。这项研究阐明了生物体生活史特征与不同生态过程如何在调节其各自的群落组装中发挥作用之间的显著而一致的关系，从而更好地理解了支持土壤生物多样性的机制。
