Yin Jing, Yuan Dandan, Lu Jing, Li He, Luo Shuzheng, Zhang Jianhua, Xiang Xingjia
School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Anhui University, Hefei 230601, China.
Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Wetland Ecosystem Protection and Restoration, Hefei 230601, China.
Microorganisms. 2024 Dec 7;12(12):2527. doi: 10.3390/microorganisms12122527.
The subalpine grassland ecosystem is sensitive to climatic changes. Previous studies investigated the effects of warming on grassland ecosystems at a single altitude, with little information about the response of subalpine meadows to warming along altitude gradients. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of warming on aboveground grass, belowground soil properties, and fungal community along altitude gradients in the subalpine meadow of Mount Wutai using the high-throughput sequencing method. Warming reduced the restriction of low temperatures on the growth of subalpine grass, resulting in increasing grass biomass, community height, and coverage. More grass biomass led to higher soil organic carbon resources, which primarily affected fungal community composition following warming. Warming might induce more stochastic processes of fungal community assembly, increasing fungal diversity at low altitudes. In contrast, warming triggered more deterministic processes to decrease fungal diversity at medium and high altitudes. Warming might improve the efficiency of soil nutrient cycling and organic matter turnover by increasing the relative abundance of soil saprotrophs and improving fungal network connectivity. The relative abundance of certain grass pathogens significantly increased following warming, thereby posing potential risks to the sustainability and stability of subalpine meadow ecosystems. Overall, this study comprehensively evaluated the response of the subalpine meadow ecosystems to warming along altitude gradients, clarifying that warming changes soil fungal community composition at different altitudes. The long-term monitoring of pathogen-related shifts should be conducted in subalpine meadow ecosystem following warming. This study provided significant scientific insights into the impact of future climatic changes on subalpine ecosystems.
亚高山草地生态系统对气候变化敏感。以往研究仅在单一海拔高度探究了变暖对草地生态系统的影响，关于亚高山草甸沿海拔梯度对变暖的响应信息较少。本研究旨在利用高通量测序方法，评估五台山亚高山草甸沿海拔梯度变暖对地上草本植物、地下土壤性质及真菌群落的影响。变暖减轻了低温对亚高山草本植物生长的限制，导致草本植物生物量、群落高度和盖度增加。更多的草本植物生物量带来了更高的土壤有机碳资源，这在变暖后主要影响了真菌群落组成。变暖可能引发真菌群落组装的更多随机过程，增加低海拔地区的真菌多样性。相反，变暖在中高海拔地区引发更多确定性过程，导致真菌多样性降低。变暖可能通过增加土壤腐生菌的相对丰度和改善真菌网络连通性，提高土壤养分循环和有机质周转效率。变暖后某些草本植物病原体的相对丰度显著增加，从而对亚高山草甸生态系统的可持续性和稳定性构成潜在风险。总体而言，本研究全面评估了亚高山草甸生态系统沿海拔梯度对变暖的响应，阐明了变暖改变不同海拔土壤真菌群落组成。变暖后应在亚高山草甸生态系统中对病原体相关变化进行长期监测。本研究为未来气候变化对亚高山生态系统的影响提供了重要的科学见解。
