Water content differences have stronger effects than plant functional groups on soil bacteria in a steppe ecosystem.

Ximei Zhang,Xunzhi Zhu,Xingguo Han,Albert Barberán,Guangming Zhang,Jack Anthony Gilbert

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0115798

Abstract

Many investigations across natural and artificial plant diversity gradients have reported that both soil physicochemical factors and plant community composition affect soil microbial communities. To test the effect of plant diversity loss on soil bacterial communities, we conducted a five-year plant functional group removal experiment in a steppe ecosystem in Inner Mongolia (China). We found that the number and composition type of plant functional groups had no effect on bacterial diversity and community composition, or on the relative abundance of major taxa. In contrast, bacterial community patterns were significantly structured by soil water content differences among plots. Our results support researches that suggest that water availability is the key factor structuring soil bacterial communities in this semi-arid ecosystem.

Highlights

Human activities are accelerating the loss rate of plant and animal diversity [1, 2]
We investigated the influence of plant functional diversity loss on soil bacterial communities in a homogeneous steppe ecosystem in Inner Mongolia (China) by the removal of naturally present plant functional groups (PFG)
Contrary to our initial hypotheses (1) and (2), we found no effect of PFG number (Linear regression, P.0.05, Fig. 1A) or PFG combinations (Three-way ANOVA, P.0.05, Fig. 1B) on bacterial operational taxonomic units (OTUs) number

Summary

Introduction

Human activities are accelerating the loss rate of plant and animal diversity [1, 2]. Plant Diversity Loss Has No Effect on Soil Bacteria examined, attention has primarily focused on those directly associated with higher organisms such as plant productivity [10]. Plants provide a source of organic carbon to belowground microorganisms, while microbes decompose and make nutrients available to plants [11]. This relationship presumes that the plant community might be an important factor structuring the belowground microbial community [12, 13]. Invasive plant species have been found to change the composition of associated belowground microbial communities [16]

Methods

Results

Conclusion