Grass-microbial inter-domain ecological networks associated with alpine grassland productivity

Abstract

Associations between grasses and soil microorganisms can strongly influence plant community structures. However, the associations between grass productivity and diversity and soil microbes, as well as the patterns of co-occurrence between grass and microbes remain unclear. Here, we surveyed grass productivity and diversity, determined soil physicochemical, and sequenced soil archaea, bacteria and fungi by metabarcoding technology at 16 alpine grasslands. Using the Distance-decay relationship, Inter-Domain Ecological Network (IDEN), and Mantel tests, we investigated the relationship between grass productivity, diversity and microbial diversity, and the patterns of co-occurrence between grass and microbial inter-domain network in alpine grassland. We found the archaea richness, bacteria richness and Shannon, and fungi α-diversity were significantly negatively correlation with grass diversity, but archaea and bacteria diversity were positively correlation with grass productivity. Moreover, an increase in microbial β-diversity was observed along with increased discrepancy in grass diversity and productivity and soil variables. Variance partitioning analysis suggested that the contribution of grass productivity on microbial community was higher than that of soil variables and grass diversity, which implies that microbial community was more related to grass productivity. Inter-Domain Ecological Network showed that the grass species formed complex and stable ecological networks with some bacterial, archaeal, and fungal species, and the grass-fungal ecological networks showed the highest robustness, which indicated that soil fungi could better co-coexist with aboveground grass in alpine grasslands. Besides, the connectivity degrees of the grass-microbial network were significantly positively correlated with grass productivity, suggesting that the coexistence pattern of grasses and microbes had a positive feedback effect on the grass productivity. The results are important for establishing the regulatory mechanisms between plants and microorganisms in alpine grassland ecosystems.

Unifying microorganisms and macrograzers in rocky shore ecological networks

“…Previous studies have compared bipartite networks in various ecological contexts, including bacteria-microeukaryotes interactions (Fuhrman et al 2015, Zheng et al 2023), bacteria-virus interactions (Weitz et al 2013, Fuhrman et al 2015), symbiont-host, parasite-host, and/or predator-prey interactions in microorganisms (Bjorbækmo et al 2020), as well as unicellular fungi-microorganisms (Moll et al 2021), sponge-microorganisms (Thomas et al 2016), plant-microorganism (Guo et al 2009, Feng et al 2019, Wang et al 2023), and insect-microorganisms (Pechal and Benbow 2016) interactions. However, most of these networks have been constructed using correlation-based inference methods or literature, without analyzing the strength of interactions.…”

The Diversity of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi and Their Associations in South America: A Case Study of Argentinean and Brazilian Cattle Raising Productive Ecosystems: A Review

“…Grasslands present great ecological, economic, and social values [16] but continue to receive limited scientific attention. The microbiota associated with grassland vegetation was also under-investigated in the past time [40]; however, during the last five years, the interest in studying these plant-microbe interactions has been promoted [41][42][43][44][45][46]. Among the microbiota associated with the grassland plant species, the AMFs represent important components interconnecting soil and plants through the hyphal networks and secreted substances, such as glomalin, useful to the restoration and sustainability of these for these valuable ecosystems at risk [47].…”

Phosphorus addition increases stability and complexity of co-occurrence network of soil microbes in an artificial Leymus chinensis grassland

“…Notably, long-term fertilization can change the key groups in the co-occurrence network ( Lin et al, 2019 ), and changes in keystone species may lead to changes in the structural and functional diversity of microbial communities ( Herren and McMahon, 2018 ; Fan et al, 2019 ). For example, keystone species in the microbial community have been shown to be directly related to the rate of soil nitrogen mineralization and to regulate the divergent-convergent trajectory of residue chemistry ( Yang et al, 2021 ; Wang et al, 2023a ). Co-occurrence networks are widely used to study microbial community interactions and classify important microorganisms in the soil.…”