Abstract
Despite enormous diversity, abundance and their role in ecosystem processes, little is known about how community structures of soil-inhabiting nematodes differ across elevation gradient. For this, soil nematode communities were investigated along an elevation gradient of 1000–2500 masl across a temperate vegetation in Banihal-Pass of Pir-Panjal mountain range. We aimed to determine how the elevation gradient affect the nematode community structure, diversity and contribution to belowground carbon assimilation in the form of metabolic footprint. Our results showed that total nematode abundance and the abundance of different trophic groups (fungivores, herbivores and omnivores) declined with the increase of elevation. Shannon index, generic richness and evenness index indicated that nematode communities were more diverse at lower elevations and declined significantly with increase in elevation. Nematode community showed a pattern of decline in overall metabolic footprint with the increase of elevation. Nematode abundance and diversity proved to be more sensitive to elevation induced changes as more abundant and diverse nematode assemblage are supported at lower elevations. Overall it appears nematode abundance, diversity and contribution to belowground carbon cycling is stronger at lower elevations and gradually keep declining towards higher elevations under temperate vegetation cover in Banihal-pass of Pir-Panjal mountain range.
Highlights
Despite enormous diversity, abundance and their role in ecosystem processes, little is known about how community structures of soil-inhabiting nematodes differ across elevation gradient
The total nematode biomass (Fig. 3A) and biomass of the three trophic groups decreased with elevation (Fig. 3C–E)
The Non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) (Fig. 4) ordination showed three distinct clusters mainly separated by elevation level, which revealed that different elevation zones provide shelter to varying abundances of nematode communities (ANOSIM test, Global R = 0.74, P = 0.001)
Summary
Abundance and their role in ecosystem processes, little is known about how community structures of soil-inhabiting nematodes differ across elevation gradient. Soil nematode communities were investigated along an elevation gradient of 1000–2500 masl across a temperate vegetation in Banihal-Pass of Pir-Panjal mountain range. We aimed to determine how the elevation gradient affect the nematode community structure, diversity and contribution to belowground carbon assimilation in the form of metabolic footprint. Nematode community showed a pattern of decline in overall metabolic footprint with the increase of elevation. Nematode abundance and diversity proved to be more sensitive to elevation induced changes as more abundant and diverse nematode assemblage are supported at lower elevations Overall it appears nematode abundance, diversity and contribution to belowground carbon cycling is stronger at lower elevations and gradually keep declining towards higher elevations under temperate vegetation cover in Banihal-pass of Pir-Panjal mountain range. There is a need to further investigate mountain ecosystems in order to gain insights into the effect of elevation on diversity and abundance patterns of soil nematodes
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