Plant invasion shifts soil microbiome and physico-chemical attributes along an elevational gradient in Kashmir Himalaya.

Soil microbial communities, being situated at the interface of aboveground plant and belowground soil systems, can play a pivotal role in determining ecosystem response to the drivers of global environmental change, including invasive species. In mountains, invasive plants occurring along elevational gradients offer a unique natural experimental system to investigate the impact of invasions in determining patterns and relationships of soil microbial diversity and nutrient pools at much shorter spatial distances. Here, we studied the impact of a global plant invader, Leucanthemum vulgare, on the diversity of soil microbiome and physico-chemical attributes along an elevational gradient (1760-2880 m) in Kashmir Himalaya. We used Illumina MiSeq platform to characterize the soil microbiome in pair-wise invaded and uninvaded plots at four different sites along the gradient. We found a total of 1959 bacterial operational taxonomic units (OTUs) belonging to 152 species, and a relatively higher number of 2475 fungal OTUs belonging to 589 species. The α-diversity of soil microbiome showed a gradual increase from low to high elevation and differed significantly (p < 0.05) between the invaded and uninvaded plots. The β-diversity revealed distinct microbiome clustering among the sampling sites. Plant invasion also altered soil physico-chemical attributes along the elevational gradient. Overall, our findings suggest that the L. vulgare-induced shifts in soil microbiome and nutrient pools may be a belowground self-reinforced mechanism to facilitate its successful invasion along the elevational gradient. Our study provides new insights into invasive plant-microbe relationships with wide implications for climate warming-driven elevational range shifts in mountains.