Responses of Soil Microbial Communities and Networks to Precipitation Change in a Typical Steppe Ecosystem of the Loess Plateau.

The response of microbial communities to changes in precipitation can regulate the nutrition cycling of terrestrial ecosystems, but the effect on the structure and interaction of microbial communities and the relationship with environmental factors in arid and semiarid areas are unclear. Here, a field simulation experiment using three precipitation gradients, 50% of normal precipitation (P50), normal precipitation (P100) and 150% of normal precipitation (P150), was carried out in the typical grassland of the Loess Plateau. We applied high-throughput sequencing and network analysis to explore the effect of precipitation changes to soil microbial communities. The results indicated that the structural composition of the microbial community responded to precipitation treatments dramatically. The Top 50 microbials were divided into resource-limited, drought-tolerant and sensitive groups based on their response to altered precipitation. The network of bacteria was more complex and stronger than fungi. Bacterial networks were less stable but more adaptable under drought than fungal. Increasing precipitation promoted the complication and firmness of fungi networks. These findings are crucial for revealing the effects of climate change on soil microbial communities in arid-land and elsewhere and can provide valuable guidance for ecological restoration and response to climate change of the Loess Plateau.