Zhang Zongxiao, Zhang Qiang, Guo Xue, Zeng Zhenzhong, Wang Yinghui, Zhang Peng, Gao Dengzhou, Deng Guisen, Sun Guodong, Yang Yuanxi, Wang Junjian
State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Integrated Surface Water-Groundwater Pollution Control, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, 518055, Guangdong, China.
Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Soil and Groundwater Pollution Control, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, 518055, Guangdong, China.
Microb Ecol. 2025 Jan 27;87(1):177. doi: 10.1007/s00248-025-02493-5.
The ecological niche separation of microbial interactions in forest ecosystems is critical to maintaining ecological balance and biodiversity and has yet to be comprehensively explored in microbial ecology. This study investigated the impacts of soil properties on microbial interactions and carbon metabolism potential in forest soils across 67 sites in China. Using redundancy analysis and random forest models, we identified soil pH and dissolved organic matter (DOM) aromaticity as the primary drivers of microbial interactions, representing abiotic conditions and resource niches, respectively. Our network comparison results highlighted significant differences in microbial interactions between acidic and non-acidic soils, suggesting the critical influences of abiotic conditions on microbial interactions. Conversely, abiotic resource niches played a more pivotal role in shaping the carbon metabolism of soil microbes, supporting the concept that resource niche-based processes drive microbial carbon cycling. Additionally, we demonstrated that microbial interactions contributed significantly to ecosystem function stability and served as potential ecological indicators of microbial functional resilience under environmental stress. These insights emphasize the critical need to preserve microbial interactions for effective forest ecosystem management and projection of ecological outcomes in response to future environmental changes.
森林生态系统中微生物相互作用的生态位分离对于维持生态平衡和生物多样性至关重要，而在微生物生态学中尚未得到全面探索。本研究调查了土壤性质对中国67个地点森林土壤中微生物相互作用和碳代谢潜力的影响。通过冗余分析和随机森林模型，我们确定土壤pH值和溶解有机物（DOM）芳香性分别作为代表非生物条件和资源生态位的微生物相互作用的主要驱动因素。我们的网络比较结果突出了酸性和非酸性土壤之间微生物相互作用的显著差异，表明非生物条件对微生物相互作用的关键影响。相反，非生物资源生态位在塑造土壤微生物的碳代谢方面发挥了更关键的作用，支持基于资源生态位的过程驱动微生物碳循环的概念。此外，我们证明微生物相互作用对生态系统功能稳定性有显著贡献，并作为环境压力下微生物功能恢复力的潜在生态指标。这些见解强调了为有效管理森林生态系统和预测未来环境变化的生态结果而保护微生物相互作用的迫切需要。
