Abstract
Biodiversity on the Earth is changing at an unprecedented rate due to a variety of global change factors (GCFs). However, the effects of GCFs on microbial diversity is unclear despite that soil microorganisms play a critical role in biogeochemical cycling. Here, we synthesize 1235 GCF observations worldwide and show that microbial rare species are more sensitive to GCFs than common species, while GCFs do not always lead to a reduction in microbial diversity. GCFs-induced shifts in microbial alpha diversity can be predominately explained by the changed soil pH. In addition, GCF impacts on soil functionality are explained by microbial community structure and biomass rather than the alpha diversity. Altogether, our findings of GCF impacts on microbial diversity are fundamentally different from previous knowledge for well-studied plant and animal communities, and are crucial to policy-making for the conservation of microbial diversity hotspots under global changes.
Highlights
Biodiversity on the Earth is changing at an unprecedented rate due to a variety of global change factors (GCFs)
We conducted a global synthesis of 1235 GCF experimental observations that measured microbial alpha diversity, beta diversity, and community structure with high-throughput sequencing techniques, and corresponding biomass and ecosystem functionalities from eight types of biomes
The questions we address include: first, what are the effects of GCFs on microbial diversity and community structure worldwide? Are the effects similar to those reported for plants and animals? Second, what are the potential drivers of these responses? As potential drivers of microbial responses to GCFs, climate, biome type, microbial group, soil resources, soil pH, and experimental forcing factors were evaluated by the model selection analysis based on the corrected Akaike information criterion (AIC)
Summary
Biodiversity on the Earth is changing at an unprecedented rate due to a variety of global change factors (GCFs). There are some differences in the RRs of beta diversity and community structure to GCFs among microbial groups and biomes, the potential mechanisms are missing partly due to the limited sample size (Supplementary Fig. 8).
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