Wang Cong, Smith Gabriel Reuben, Gao Cheng, Peay Kabir G
State Key Laboratory of Mycology, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100101, Beijing, China.
Key Laboratory of Vegetation Restoration and Management of Degraded Ecosystems and Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Applied Botany, South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, 510650, China.
ISME Commun. 2023 May 3;3(1):44. doi: 10.1038/s43705-023-00253-5.
Although microbes are the major agent of wood decomposition - a key component of the carbon cycle - the degree to which microbial community dynamics affect this process is unclear. One key knowledge gap is the extent to which stochastic variation in community assembly, e.g. due to historical contingency, can substantively affect decomposition rates. To close this knowledge gap, we manipulated the pool of microbes dispersing into laboratory microcosms using rainwater sampled across a transition zone between two vegetation types with distinct microbial communities. Because the laboratory microcosms were initially identical this allowed us to isolate the effect of changing microbial dispersal directly on community structure, biogeochemical cycles and wood decomposition. Dispersal significantly affected soil fungal and bacterial community composition and diversity, resulting in distinct patterns of soil nitrogen reduction and wood mass loss. Correlation analysis showed that the relationship among soil fungal and bacterial community, soil nitrogen reduction and wood mass loss were tightly connected. These results give empirical support to the notion that dispersal can structure the soil microbial community and through it ecosystem functions. Future biogeochemical models including the links between soil microbial community and wood decomposition may improve their precision in predicting wood decomposition.
尽管微生物是木材分解的主要媒介——碳循环的关键组成部分——但微生物群落动态对这一过程的影响程度尚不清楚。一个关键的知识空白是群落组装中的随机变化（例如由于历史偶然性）能在多大程度上实质性地影响分解速率。为了填补这一知识空白，我们利用在具有不同微生物群落的两种植被类型之间的过渡区采集的雨水，操控了扩散到实验室微观世界中的微生物库。由于实验室微观世界最初是相同的，这使我们能够直接分离出改变微生物扩散对群落结构、生物地球化学循环和木材分解的影响。扩散显著影响了土壤真菌和细菌群落的组成与多样性，导致了土壤氮减少和木材质量损失的不同模式。相关性分析表明，土壤真菌和细菌群落、土壤氮减少和木材质量损失之间的关系紧密相连。这些结果为以下观点提供了实证支持：扩散能够构建土壤微生物群落，并通过它影响生态系统功能。未来包含土壤微生物群落与木材分解之间联系的生物地球化学模型，可能会提高其预测木材分解的精度。
