Lepinay Clémentine, Větrovský Tomáš, Chytrý Milan, Dřevojan Pavel, Fajmon Karel, Cajthaml Tomáš, Kohout Petr, Baldrian Petr
Institute of Microbiology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Vídeňská 1083, 14220, Prague 4, Czech Republic.
Department of Botany and Zoology, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Kotlářská 2, 61137, Brno, Czech Republic.
Environ Microbiome. 2024 Jun 20;19(1):42. doi: 10.1186/s40793-024-00583-4.
Grasslands provide fundamental ecosystem services that are supported by their plant diversity. However, the importance of plant taxonomic diversity for the diversity of other taxa in grasslands remains poorly understood. Here, we studied the associations between plant communities, soil chemistry and soil microbiome in a wooded meadow of Čertoryje (White Carpathians, Czech Republic), a European hotspot of plant species diversity.
High plant diversity was associated with treeless grassland areas with high primary productivity and high contents of soil nitrogen and organic carbon. In contrast, low plant diversity occurred in grasslands near solitary trees and forest edges. Fungal communities differed between low-diversity and high-diversity grasslands more strongly than bacterial communities, while the difference in arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) depended on their location in soil versus plant roots. Compared to grasslands with low plant diversity, high-diversity plant communities had a higher diversity of fungi including soil AMF, a different fungal and soil AMF community composition and higher bacterial and soil AMF biomass. Root AMF composition differed only slightly between grasslands with low and high plant diversity. Trees dominated the belowground plant community in low-diversity grasslands, which influenced microbial diversity and composition.
The determinants of microbiome abundance and composition in grasslands are complex. Soil chemistry mainly influenced bacterial communities, while plant community type mainly affected fungal (including AMF) communities. Further studies on the functional roles of microbial communities are needed to understand plant-soil-microbe interactions and their involvement in grassland ecosystem services.
草原提供了由其植物多样性所支撑的基本生态系统服务。然而，植物分类多样性对草原中其他生物分类群多样性的重要性仍知之甚少。在此，我们研究了捷克共和国白喀尔巴阡山脉植物物种多样性的欧洲热点地区切尔托里耶一处树木繁茂草甸中植物群落、土壤化学和土壤微生物群落之间的关联。
高植物多样性与初级生产力高、土壤氮和有机碳含量高的无树草原区域相关。相比之下，低植物多样性出现在孤立树木附近和森林边缘的草原中。低多样性和高多样性草原之间的真菌群落差异比细菌群落更显著，而丛枝菌根真菌（AMF）的差异取决于它们在土壤与植物根系中的位置。与植物多样性低的草原相比，高多样性植物群落具有更高的真菌多样性，包括土壤AMF、不同的真菌和土壤AMF群落组成以及更高的细菌和土壤AMF生物量。低植物多样性和高植物多样性草原之间的根系AMF组成仅略有差异。在低多样性草原中，树木主导了地下植物群落，这影响了微生物多样性和组成。
草原中微生物群落丰度和组成的决定因素很复杂。土壤化学主要影响细菌群落，而植物群落类型主要影响真菌（包括AMF）群落。需要进一步研究微生物群落的功能作用，以了解植物 - 土壤 - 微生物相互作用及其在草原生态系统服务中的作用。
