Forest Soil Fungal Community Elevational Distribution Pattern and Their Ecological Assembly Processes

Abstract

Soil fungi play vital roles in natural ecosystems, however, their community distribution patterns along different environmental gradients and ecological assembly processes remain unclear. In this study, Illumina MiSeq sequencing was used to investigate the soil fungal community structures of five different forest types along an elevational gradient, and a framework based on a null model was adopted to quantify the relative contribution of deterministic and stochastic ecological assembly processes. The results showed that the majority of soil fungal OTUs were derived from Zygomycota, Basidiomycota, and Ascomycota. Soil fungal community structure differed significantly among the five sites (P < 0.01), and the fungal α-diversity decreased as elevation increased (P < 0.01). The null model showed that the relative contribution of stochastic processes (37.78–73.33%) was higher than that of deterministic processes (26.67–62.22%) within the same forest type, while that of deterministic processes (35.00–93.00%) was higher than stochastic processes (7.00–65.00%) between forest types. These results suggest that forest soil fungal diversity decreased significantly with increasing elevation, and that deterministic processes may be key factors influencing soil fungal community assemblies among forest types. The results of this study provide new insight into soil fungal distribution patterns and community assembly processes in natural forest ecosystems.

Effects of ultramafic topsoil stockpiling during mine activities on its microbial diversity and other microbiological and physicochemical characteristics

“…In addition, many Basidiomycota species are ectomycorrhizal and may then be disturbed by the topsoil storage. Among the Basidiomycota, the class of Agaricomycetes was dominant, which is frequently reported in similar studies (Karst et al, 2013;Ko et al, 2017;Sheng et al, 2019).…”

“…Our DISTLM analysis also detected an effect of soil pH on the bacterial community structure. Soil pH is commonly reported as regulating the structure of microbiota communities (Lauber et al, 2008;Rousk et al, 2010;Sheng et al, 2019). In our case, it is interesting to note that Acidobacteria, the second most important bacterial phylum in the studied topsoils, declined after storage in topsoil 2 where the pH value raised from 5.2 to 6.5.…”

Different Stand types Alter Soil Properties and Microbial Community in Warm Temperate Forest

“…In this study, the dominant micro ora of soil fungus were Basidiomycota and Ascomycota, the contents of them have difference with signi cance. The results showed that the dominant phyla of fungus were different under different stand types, which is consistent with the results of Sheng's study [35]. The dominant soil fungus under the soil of Betula dahurica, Pinus tabuliformis and Juglans mandshurica forest are Ascomycota, followed by Basidiomycota, the same situation appeared in tropical forest soil, subtropical forest soil in Australia, Guandi mountain forest soil and aeolian sand area in Northwest Liaoning.…”

Altitudinal Variation Influences Soil Fungal Community Composition and Diversity in Alpine–Gorge Region on the Eastern Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau

“…Some studies have also showed that soil total nitrogen and nitrate nitrogen are the key drivers for α-diversity of saprophytic and pathogenic fungi along altitude gradients, respectively [ 41 ]. The β-diversity of soil fungi was found to be driven by environmental factors, geographic distance, or their combination along altitude gradients [ 42 , 43 , 44 ]. The driver divergence of turnover and nestedness components of soil fungal β-diversity has been validated at regional scales [ 30 ], but it has not been validated along altitude gradients.…”