College of Life Sciences, Henan Agricultural University, No.63 Agricultural Road, Zhengzhou, 450002, China.
Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100093, China.
BMC Microbiol. 2022 Aug 30;22(1):208. doi: 10.1186/s12866-022-02591-1.
Soil microbiome is an important part of the forest ecosystem and participates in forest ecological restoration and reconstruction. Niche differentiation with respect to resources is a prominent hypothesis to account for the maintenance of species diversity in forest ecosystems. Resource-based niche differentiation has driven ecological specialization. Plants influence soil microbial diversity and distribution by affecting the soil environment. However, with the change in plant population type, whether the distribution of soil microbes is random or follows an ecologically specialized manner remains to be further studied. We characterized the soil microbiome (bacteria and fungi) in different plant populations to assess the effects of phytophysiognomy on the distribution patterns of soil microbial communities in a temperate forest in China.
Our results showed that the distribution of most soil microbes in different types of plant populations is not random but specialized in these temperate forests. The distribution patterns of bacteria and fungi were related to the composition of plant communities. Fungal species (32%) showed higher specialization than bacterial species (15%) for different types of plant populations. Light was the main driving factor of the fungal community, and soil physicochemical factors were the main driving factor of the bacterial community.
These findings suggest that ecological specialization is important in maintaining local diversity in soil microbial communities in this forest. Fungi are more specialized than bacteria in the face of changes in plant population types. Changes in plant community composition could have important effects on soil microbial communities by potentially influencing the stability and stress resistance of forest ecosystems.
土壤微生物组是森林生态系统的重要组成部分，参与森林生态恢复和重建。资源特化是解释森林生态系统物种多样性维持的一个突出假说。基于资源的特化导致了生态专业化。植物通过影响土壤环境来影响土壤微生物的多样性和分布。然而，随着植物种群类型的变化，土壤微生物的分布是随机的还是遵循生态专业化方式，仍需要进一步研究。本研究通过对不同植物种群的土壤微生物（细菌和真菌）进行特征描述，评估植物生理型对中国温带森林土壤微生物群落分布模式的影响。
本研究结果表明，不同类型植物种群中大多数土壤微生物的分布并非随机，而是在这些温带森林中具有专业化特征。细菌和真菌的分布模式与植物群落的组成有关。真菌物种（32%）比细菌物种（15%）对不同类型的植物种群表现出更高的专业化。光照是真菌群落的主要驱动因素，土壤理化因素是细菌群落的主要驱动因素。
这些发现表明，生态专业化对于维持该森林土壤微生物群落的局部多样性非常重要。面对植物种群类型的变化，真菌比细菌更具专业化。植物群落组成的变化可能通过影响森林生态系统的稳定性和抗逆性，对土壤微生物群落产生重要影响。
