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Tree species identity has little impact on the structure of soil bacterial communities in a 10-year-old tropical tree plantation

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Abstract

We investigated whether tree species identity has a significant impact on the structure of soil bacterial communities in a tropical tree plantation (Sardinilla, Panama). The experimental site contains tree species native to Panama, planted in both monoculture and mixed-species plots. Using a DNA fingerprinting approach (automated ribosomal intergenic spacer analysis [ARISA]), we identified significant differences in the community structure of abundant bacterial taxa in the bulk soil among all monoculture plots. We similarly found differences among plots containing five, three, one or no tree species. While distance-based gradients in bacterial community structure were detected across the plantation, further investigation revealed that the observed heterogeneity was, in fact, poorly related to the tree species in a given plot. We provide evidence that site related features (e.g., variability in soil pH) play a more important role in regulating the structure of bacterial communities within the bulk soil than tree species identity or richness.

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Acknowledgements

This work was funded by the Lincoln University Research Fund (Lear) and The University of Auckland Faculty Research Development Fund (Schwendenmann) with additional support from the Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden fund (Grant No. LU10901). Support for Taiga Yamamura was provided by the Lincoln University summer scholarship program. This study benefitted greatly from the logistical support provided by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama. We are particularly grateful to Catherine Potvin (McGill University, Canada) for her kind permission to conduct this study at the Sardinilla biodiversity experiment, Norbert Kunert (Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Germany) for his kind assistance with sample collection and the Centre for Soil and Environmental Research, Lincoln University, for assistance in qPCR analysis. The research was conducted under permits (SEX/P-60-10, SE/P-16-11) issued by ANAM (Autoridad Nacional del Ambiente, Panama).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Soil and Physical Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Lincoln University, PO Box 83,, Lincoln, 7647, Christchurch, New Zealand

    Taiga Yamamura & Gavin Lear

  2. School of Environment, University of Auckland, Private Bag, 92019, Auckland, New Zealand

    Luitgard Schwendenmann

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  1. Taiga Yamamura
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  2. Luitgard Schwendenmann
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Correspondence to Gavin Lear.

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Table S1

PERMANOVA of bacterial community ARISA profiles obtained from soil surrounding each tree in each monoculture plot sampled in December 2010, completed on the basis of the Bray Curtis similarity measure, and showing partitioning of multivariate variation and tests for the factors of Species, Tree and their interactions (DOC 29 kb)

Table S2

Diversity measures obtained for plots planted with 5, 3, 1 or no tree species (5 sp, 3 sp, 1 sp and 0 sp, respectively) sampled in July 2011. Data for 5 sp and 3 sp relate to samples taken from plots A3 and T4, respectively. Data for 0 sp relate to samples taken from plots Ca1 and Ca2. Data for 1 sp relate to samples taken from all monoculture plots. The average taxa diversity of monoculture plots planted with different tree species (Ae, Cm, Hc, Ls and Tr) is also shown (DOC 54 kb)

Table S3

Relationship between ARISA profiles on the basis of the Bray Curtis similarity measure and recorded environmental variables, analysed with a forward selection procedure using a DISTLM (DOC 30 kb)

Figure S4

Canonical analysis of the relationship between soil pH and bacterial community structure. Canonical distance is the relative position of datasets in the first dimension, generated from multi-dimensional scaling using the Bray-Curtis similarity measure (PPTX 82 kb)

Table S5

Key soil characteristics obtained for plots comprised of 5, 3, 1 or 0 tree species. Data for 5 sp and 3 sp relate to samples taken from plots A3 and T4, respectively. Data for 0 sp relate to samples taken from plots Ca1 and Ca2. Data for 1 sp relate to samples taken from all monoculture plots. The average taxa diversity of monoculture plots planted with different tree species (Ae, Cm, Hc, Ls and Tr) is also shown (DOC 60 kb)

Table S6

Abundance of bacterial amoA and archaeal amoA genes in plots with 5, 3, 1 or no tree species (5 sp, 3 sp, 1 sp and 0 sp, respectively). Data for 5 sp and 3 sp relate to samples taken from plots A3 and T4. Data for 0 sp relate to samples taken from plots Ca1 and Ca2. Data for 1 sp relate to samples taken from all monoculture plots. The average taxa diversity of monoculture plots planted with different tree species (Ae, Cm, Hc, Ls and Tr) is also shown. Data for nosZ genes were below detection. (DOC 47 kb)

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Yamamura, T., Schwendenmann, L. & Lear, G. Tree species identity has little impact on the structure of soil bacterial communities in a 10-year-old tropical tree plantation. Biol Fertil Soils 49, 819–828 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00374-013-0774-x

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