Division of Plant and Soil Science, Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Design, West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia, USA.
Department of Soil Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA.
Ecology. 2023 Jan;104(1):e3844. doi: 10.1002/ecy.3844. Epub 2022 Oct 9.
Soil bacteria and fungi mediate terrestrial biogeochemical cycling, but we know relatively little about how trophic interactions influence their community composition, diversity, and function. Specifically, it is unclear how consumer populations affect the activity of microbial taxa they consume, and therefore the interaction of those taxa with other members of the microbial community. Due to its extreme diversity, studying trophic dynamics in soil is a complex feat. Seeking to address these challenges, we performed a microcosm-based consumer manipulation experiment to determine the impact of a common fungal-feeding nematode (Aphelenchus avenae) on soil microbial community composition, diversity, and activity (e.g., C cycling parameters). Fungivory decreased fungal and bacterial α-diversity and stimulated C and N cycling, possibly via cascading impacts of fungivory on bacterial communities. Our results present experimental evidence that soil trophic dynamics are intimately linked with microbial diversity and function, factors that are key in understanding global patterns in biogeochemical cycling.
土壤细菌和真菌介导陆地生物地球化学循环，但我们相对较少了解营养相互作用如何影响它们的群落组成、多样性和功能。具体来说，尚不清楚消费者群体如何影响它们所消耗的微生物类群的活性，因此也不清楚这些类群与微生物群落其他成员的相互作用。由于其极端的多样性，研究土壤中的营养动态是一项复杂的任务。为了应对这些挑战，我们进行了基于微宇宙的消费者操纵实验，以确定一种常见的真菌食线虫（Aphelenchus avenae）对土壤微生物群落组成、多样性和活性（例如，C 循环参数）的影响。食真菌作用降低了真菌和细菌的 α 多样性，并刺激了 C 和 N 循环，可能是通过食真菌作用对细菌群落的级联影响。我们的研究结果提供了实验证据，表明土壤营养动态与微生物多样性和功能密切相关，这些因素是理解生物地球化学循环全球格局的关键。
