TY - JOUR
T1 - Biogeography of soil protistan consumer and parasite is contrasting and linked to microbial nutrient mineralization in forest soils at a wide-scale
AU - Wu, Bo
AU - Zhou, Luhong
AU - Liu, Shangshi
AU - Liu, Feifei
AU - Saleem, Muhammad
AU - Han, Xingguo
AU - Shu, Longfei
AU - Yu, Xiaoli
AU - Hu, Ruiwen
AU - He, Zhili
AU - Wang, Cheng
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by: National Natural Science Foundation of China 31800417 (BW); National Natural Science Foundation of China 32000070 and 52070196 (CW); Innovation Group Project of Southern Marine and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai) No. 311020005 (ZH); Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation 2019A1515011406 (CW); Guangzhou Science and Technology Plan Projects 202002030454 (CW); Special Funds for Scientific and Technological Innovation in Guangdong Province (Grant number 2018A030310302 to BW); Hundred Talents Program through Sun Yat-Sen University 38000–1884120 (LS); Hundred Talents Program through Sun Yat-Sen University 99318–18841205 (CW).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2022/2/1
Y1 - 2022/2/1
N2 - Despite their essential role in soil microbiome and the global ecological processes, large-scale biogeographical patterns and predictors of protists are poorly characterized. Investigating the diversity and distribution of protists is crucial for understanding their biogeographic patterns and underlying the drivers across phylogenetic, ecological, and functional scales. Here, we explored a wide-scale pattern of protistan communities, and linked it with soil functions, in 107 soil samples from nine forest sites along a large climatic gradient. Our results showed that the biogeography of protistan communities in forest soils generally fitted the temperature diversity gradients (TDG), metabolic niche theory (MNT) and distance-decay relationships (DDR). Strikingly, the dominant protistan phyla, Cercozoa (consumer) and Apicomplexa (parasite), followed highly different/contrasting biogeographic patterns along the climatic gradient, as a result of environmental selection and stochastic processes. Cercozoa were relatively more abundant in cold arid soils while Apicomplexa thrived in tropical wet sites. Homogenizing dispersal had a stronger effect on the distribution of the Cercozoa, while ecological drift controlled the distribution of the Apicomplexa. In addition, we found that protist network modularization explained 57.5% of the variation in soil nutrient mineralization, suggesting the critical roles of Cercozoa and Apicomplexa in nutrient cycling. Collectively, we showed the general applicability of TDG, MNT and DDR to the soil protistan communities and revealed contrasting biogeographic patterns of protistan consumer and parasite along climatic gradients. Our study highlights the crucial contribution of protistan communities to nutrient mineralization in forest soils.
AB - Despite their essential role in soil microbiome and the global ecological processes, large-scale biogeographical patterns and predictors of protists are poorly characterized. Investigating the diversity and distribution of protists is crucial for understanding their biogeographic patterns and underlying the drivers across phylogenetic, ecological, and functional scales. Here, we explored a wide-scale pattern of protistan communities, and linked it with soil functions, in 107 soil samples from nine forest sites along a large climatic gradient. Our results showed that the biogeography of protistan communities in forest soils generally fitted the temperature diversity gradients (TDG), metabolic niche theory (MNT) and distance-decay relationships (DDR). Strikingly, the dominant protistan phyla, Cercozoa (consumer) and Apicomplexa (parasite), followed highly different/contrasting biogeographic patterns along the climatic gradient, as a result of environmental selection and stochastic processes. Cercozoa were relatively more abundant in cold arid soils while Apicomplexa thrived in tropical wet sites. Homogenizing dispersal had a stronger effect on the distribution of the Cercozoa, while ecological drift controlled the distribution of the Apicomplexa. In addition, we found that protist network modularization explained 57.5% of the variation in soil nutrient mineralization, suggesting the critical roles of Cercozoa and Apicomplexa in nutrient cycling. Collectively, we showed the general applicability of TDG, MNT and DDR to the soil protistan communities and revealed contrasting biogeographic patterns of protistan consumer and parasite along climatic gradients. Our study highlights the crucial contribution of protistan communities to nutrient mineralization in forest soils.
KW - Soil protistan communities
KW - Contrasting biogeography
KW - Consumer
KW - Parasite
KW - Nutrient mineralization
U2 - 10.1016/j.soilbio.2021.108513
DO - 10.1016/j.soilbio.2021.108513
M3 - Article
VL - 165
JO - Soil Biology & Biochemistry
JF - Soil Biology & Biochemistry
SN - 0038-0717
M1 - 108513
ER -