Elevation patterns and assembly processes of soil microbial community structures are essential for understanding biogeo-chemical processes in mountain systems.Differences in soil properties caused by elevation gradien...Elevation patterns and assembly processes of soil microbial community structures are essential for understanding biogeo-chemical processes in mountain systems.Differences in soil properties caused by elevation gradients can regulate the spatial distribu-tion and network complexity of the community structure.To explore the variations in soil microbial community structures and their as-sembly mechanisms across different elevations of the Changbai Mountains,as well as their responses to environmental factors,we col-lected microbial samples along an elevational gradient(seven elevations containing four vegetation zones)on the western slope of the Changbai Mountains using the method of metagenomic sequencing.The results showed a significant difference(P<0.05)for the Chao1 index across different elevations,but no significant difference was observed for the Shannon and Simpson indices.With increasing elev-ation,the number of nodes and links in the microbial network gradually decreased.Acidobacteria were highly connected to many nodes.The microbial communities indicated a significant distance-decay relationship(P<0.001)and were affected more by stochastic pro-cesses along the elevation gradient.The results of the Structural Equation Model(SEM)showed that elevation had direct significant ef-fect on carbon(C,P<0.01),nitrogen(N,P<0.01),and phosphorus(P,P<0.05)and weak negative effect on their ecological stoi-chiometry.Elevation was one of the major variables contributing to microbial network topology.The contribution of C and N to micro-bial network complexity was higher than that of P.Our study provides valuable insights into the responses of soil microbial communit-ies to elevation variations.展开更多
基金Under the auspices of the National Natural Science Foundation of China(No.42430511,U20A2083)the National Key Research and Development Program of China(No.2022YFF1300900)the Science and Technology Development Program of Jilin Province(No.20210509037RQ,20230101348JC)。
文摘Elevation patterns and assembly processes of soil microbial community structures are essential for understanding biogeo-chemical processes in mountain systems.Differences in soil properties caused by elevation gradients can regulate the spatial distribu-tion and network complexity of the community structure.To explore the variations in soil microbial community structures and their as-sembly mechanisms across different elevations of the Changbai Mountains,as well as their responses to environmental factors,we col-lected microbial samples along an elevational gradient(seven elevations containing four vegetation zones)on the western slope of the Changbai Mountains using the method of metagenomic sequencing.The results showed a significant difference(P<0.05)for the Chao1 index across different elevations,but no significant difference was observed for the Shannon and Simpson indices.With increasing elev-ation,the number of nodes and links in the microbial network gradually decreased.Acidobacteria were highly connected to many nodes.The microbial communities indicated a significant distance-decay relationship(P<0.001)and were affected more by stochastic pro-cesses along the elevation gradient.The results of the Structural Equation Model(SEM)showed that elevation had direct significant ef-fect on carbon(C,P<0.01),nitrogen(N,P<0.01),and phosphorus(P,P<0.05)and weak negative effect on their ecological stoi-chiometry.Elevation was one of the major variables contributing to microbial network topology.The contribution of C and N to micro-bial network complexity was higher than that of P.Our study provides valuable insights into the responses of soil microbial communit-ies to elevation variations.
