Abstract
BackgroundElevation trends of macro organisms have long been well studied. However, whether microbes also exhibit such patterns of elevation change is unknown. Here, we investigated the changes in bamboo forest soil bacterial communities along six elevation gradients, from 600 to 1800 m a.s.l. in Mt. Da-an, a subtropical montane area in Nantou county at central Taiwan.ResultsData from 16S rRNA gene clone libraries revealed that more than 70 % of the six communities contained Acidobacteria and Proteobacteria, although the relative abundance differed. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling analysis of the distribution of operational taxonomic units showed differences in bamboo soil bacterial communities across gradients. The bacterial communities at 1000 and 1200 m showed greater diversity than the communities at both lower (600 and 800 m) and higher (1400 and 1800 m) elevations. In contrast to the bacterial community trend, soil C and N and microbial biomass properties increased linearly with elevation.ConclusionThe bamboo soil bacterial community could interact with multiple factors such as soil organic matter content and temperature, for differences in composition and diversity with change in elevation.
Highlights
Elevation trends of macro organisms have long been well studied
The number of total bacteria, methanotrophic bacteria and ammonia-oxidizing archaea was negatively correlated with increasing elevation (Ma et al 2004; Giri et al 2007; Zhang et al 2009), but the content of Gram-negative bacteria increases with increasing elevation in the Austrian central Alps (Margesin et al 2009)
This result is similar to the changes in bacterial diversity with elevation on Mount Fuji (Singh et al 2012), suggesting that the pattern of bamboo soil bacterial diversity along elevation gradients is different from that of plants and animals
Summary
Elevation trends of macro organisms have long been well studied. Whether microbes exhibit such patterns of elevation change is unknown. We investigated the changes in bamboo forest soil bacte‐ rial communities along six elevation gradients, from 600 to 1800 m a.s.l. in Mt. Da-an, a subtropical montane area in Nantou county at central Taiwan. Understanding the responses of soil communities across elevation gradients has long been a fascinating topic for ecologists. The composition of macro organisms along elevation gradients have been well studied (Herzog et al 2005; Rahbek 2005; Kreft and Jetz 2007; McCain 2009). The distribution of microorganisms might not follow the same ecological rules as for macro organisms.
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