Microbial diversity controls soil multifunctionality across the European continent

Abstract

Soil microorganisms, crucial players of soil organic matter degradation, contribute substantially to global carbon and nitrogen biogeochemical cycles. Although microbial community structure and diversity have been extensively studied at different latitudes worldwide, the relationship between microbial communities, environmental drivers, and ecosystem functions across latitudes has yet to be explored. Here we investigate soil bacterial and fungal community structure and diversity, and ecosystem multifunctionality across different biomes of the European continent from southern Spain (37°N) to Sweden (60°N). Bacterial alpha-diversity increased with increasing the latitude, while fungal alpha-diversity showed an opposite pattern. Fungal communities were more geographically dispersed than bacterial communities. Microbial communities were structured by soil temperature, water content, and resources (TOC, C/N ratio and phosphate). While multifunctionality index related to N cycling functions decreased linearly and significantly with increasing bacterial diversity, it increased significantly with the increases in fungal diversity indices. Our study sheds light on the soil microbial complexity, microbial diversity and function relationship across latitudes and biomes, and highlights the importance of microbial diversity and community structure in driving soil multifunctionality.