Abstract
BackgroundIncreasing our knowledge of soil biodiversity is fundamental to forecast changes in ecosystem functions under global change scenarios. All multicellular organisms are now known to be holobionts, containing large assemblages of microbial species. Soil fauna is now known to have thousands of species living within them. However, we know very little about the identity and function of host microbiome in contrasting soil faunal groups, across different terrestrial biomes, or at a large spatial scale. Here, we examined the microbiomes of multiple functionally important soil fauna in contrasting terrestrial ecosystems across China.ResultsDifferent soil fauna had diverse and unique microbiomes, which were also distinct from those in surrounding soils. These unique microbiomes were maintained within taxa across diverse sampling sites and in contrasting terrestrial ecosystems. The microbiomes of nematodes, potworms, and earthworms were more difficult to predict using environmental data, compared to those of collembolans, oribatid mites, and predatory mites. Although stochastic processes were important, deterministic processes, such as host selection, also contributed to the assembly of unique microbiota in each taxon of soil fauna. Microbial biodiversity, unique microbial taxa, and microbial dark matter (defined as unidentified microbial taxa) all increased with trophic levels within the soil food web.ConclusionsOur findings demonstrate that soil animals are important as repositories of microbial biodiversity, and those at the top of the food web harbor more diverse and unique microbiomes. This hidden source of biodiversity is rarely considered in biodiversity and conservation debates and stresses the importance of preserving key soil invertebrates.6kheVvGhGfd4H1y_K4HwoRVideo abstract
Highlights
Increasing our knowledge of soil biodiversity is fundamental to forecast changes in ecosystem functions under global change scenarios
We found that collembolan and earthworm microbiomes shared more operational taxonomic units (OTUs) with soil than did other soil fauna (Fig. S7)
Network analysis showed that more unknown OTUs occurred as top hubs with an increase in the trophic level (Fig. 7), suggesting that microbial dark matter had a more important ecological role in the microbiome of Hidden microbial diversity in the soil food web Here, we present a systematic characterization of the microbiome of six functionally important soil faunal groups from diverse ecosystems across China
Summary
Increasing our knowledge of soil biodiversity is fundamental to forecast changes in ecosystem functions under global change scenarios. We know very little about the identity and function of host microbiome in contrasting soil faunal groups, across different terrestrial biomes, or at a large spatial scale. We examined the microbiomes of multiple functionally important soil fauna in contrasting terrestrial ecosystems across China. Comprehensive studies evaluating the soil invertebrate microbiome across contrasting ecosystems and over large spatial scales have not been conducted. This hampers our ability to predict the consequences of soil faunal extinction on microbial biodiversity. We argue that investigating the biodiversity and identity of microbial taxa within the microbiome of functionally important and widely distributed soil invertebrates is fundamental to a complete understanding of food webs and biodiversity
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