Abstract
The belowground soil prokaryotic community plays a cardinal role in sustaining the stability and functions of forest ecosystems. Yet, the nature of how soil prokaryotic diversity co-varies with aboveground plant diversity along a latitudinal gradient remains elusive. By establishing three hundred 400-m2 quadrats from tropical rainforest to boreal forest in a large-scale parallel study on both belowground soil prokaryote and aboveground tree and herb communities, we found that soil prokaryotic diversity couples with the diversity of herbs rather than trees. The diversity of prokaryotes and herbs responds similarly to environmental factors along the latitudinal gradient. These findings revealed that herbs provide a good predictor of belowground biodiversity in forest ecosystems, and provide new perspective on the aboveground and belowground interactions in forest ecosystems.
Highlights
16S rRNA gene, we seek to explore how soil prokaryotic diversity couple with tree and herb diversity in forest ecosystems along the latitudinal gradient
There has been extensive evidence that belowground communities vary across different types of vegetation[14,15], but how soil prokaryotic diversity co-varies with aboveground plant diversity along the latitudinal gradient remains less understood
We found that soil prokaryotes and herbs followed a non-linear richness pattern across five forest ecosystems along the latitudinal gradient
Summary
16S rRNA gene, we seek to explore how soil prokaryotic diversity couple with tree and herb diversity in forest ecosystems along the latitudinal gradient. These results suggested that the latitudinal diversity pattern of soil prokaryotes might be more consistent with herbs rather than trees in forest ecosystems. These findings indicate that the community assembly mechanism driving diversity patterns of soil prokaryotes might be similar to herbs but different from trees in forest ecosystems.
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