Abstract
Understanding the effects of environmental factors on microbial communities is critical for microbial ecology, but it remains challenging. In this study, we examined the diversity (alpha diversity) and community compositions (beta diversity) of prokaryotes and fungi in hypersaline sediments and salinized soils from northern China. Environmental variables were highly correlated, but they differed significantly between the sediments and saline soils. The compositions of prokaryotic and fungal communities in the hypersaline sediments were different from those in adjacent saline–alkaline soils, indicating a habitat-specific microbial distribution pattern. The macroelements (S, P, K, Mg, and Fe) and Ca were, respectively, correlated closely with the alpha diversity of prokaryotes and fungi, while the macronutrients (e.g., Na, S, P, and Ca) were correlated with the prokaryotic and fungal beta-diversity (P ≤ 0.05). And, the nine microelements (e.g., Al, Ba, Co, Hg, and Mn) and micronutrients (Ba, Cd, and Sr) individually shaped the alpha diversity of prokaryotes and fungi, while the six microelements (e.g., As, Ba, Cr, and Ge) and only the trace elements (Cr and Cu), respectively, influenced the beta diversity of prokaryotes and fungi (P < 0.05). Variation-partitioning analysis (VPA) showed that environmental variables jointly explained 55.49% and 32.27% of the total variation for the prokaryotic and fungal communities, respectively. Together, our findings demonstrate that the diversity and community composition of the prokaryotes and fungi were driven by different macro and microelements in saline habitats, and that geochemical elements could more widely regulate the diversity and community composition of prokaryotes than these of fungi.
Highlights
Microbial communities are ubiquitous and can even thrive in extreme environments such as hypersaline lakes, marine habitats and saline–alkaline soils (Jiang et al, 2007; Andrei et al, 2015; Yakimov et al, 2015; Xie et al, 2017)
We found that the Chao1 index and observed operational taxonomic unit (OTU) for prokaryotes were significantly higher than these for fungi, and that the diversity of prokaryotes and fungi was higher in saline soils than in hypersaline samples (Supplementary Table S4)
We found that the average diversity index (Shannon index) of prokaryotes and fungi in the hypersaline sediments of salt lakes was consistently lower than in the adjacent saline– alkaline soils, and examined a noticeable decreasing trend in average species richness (Chao1 index) of the microbial communities in the hypersaline sediments (Supplementary Table S4), suggesting that the extreme saline environments harbor the lowest alpha-diversity of prokaryotes and fungi
Summary
Microbial communities are ubiquitous and can even thrive in extreme environments such as hypersaline lakes, marine habitats and saline–alkaline soils (Jiang et al, 2007; Andrei et al, 2015; Yakimov et al, 2015; Xie et al, 2017). Accumulating evidence suggests that geochemical elements could be major factors influencing microbial assemblages (Oren, 2013) Macroelements such as K+, Ca2+, and Mg2+significantly contributed to the species richness and compositions of prokaryotic communities in soils and hypersaline sediments (Podell et al, 2014; Bryanskaya et al, 2016; Xia et al, 2016; Zhong et al, 2016) and Ca and P significantly affect fungal community compositions in forest soils (Sun et al, 2016). Some microelements are regarded as toxic to most forms of life, they regulated microbial communities in extreme conditions They are significantly correlated with bacterial community composition in hot springs (Jiang et al, 2016) and certain elements (Co, Ni, and Mn) explained variations of prokaryotic and fungal assemblages in polymetallic mining areas (Reith et al, 2015). The relevant knowledge is still unavailable especially as regards saline habitats
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