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Positive correlation between soil bacterial metabolic and plant species diversity and bacterial and fungal diversity in a vegetation succession on Karst

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Abstract

The hypothesis that positive links exist among plant taxonomic diversity, belowground microbial taxonomic and metabolic diversities was tested for four secondary vegetation successional stages (tussock (T), shrub (S), secondary forest (SF) and primary forest (PF)) in Huanjiang county, SW China. Soil bacterial communities were characterized by DNA fingerprinting and metabolic profiling. Along the succession, Shannon diversity indices followed the order SF>PF>S>T for plant taxonomic diversity, T>SF>PF>S for bacterial operational taxonomic diversity, SF>T>S>PF for fungal operational taxonomic diversity, and SF>PF>S>T for bacterial metabolic diversity. Significant positive correlations were found between bacterial and fungal taxonomic diversities. However, there was no significant correlation between soil microbial taxonomic diversity and bacterial metabolic diversity. Two-way ANOVA revealed that vegetation and season, as well as their interaction, had significant effects on soil microbial (fungal and bacterial) taxonomic diversities, but that there were no seasonal effects on metabolic diversity. However, PCA and MANOVA revealed highly significant differences among the bacterial community-level physiological profiles, reflecting the successional sequence. The findings from this survey support the notion that there are strong interactions between aboveground and belowground communities and suggest that bacterial metabolic and plant taxonomic diversities, but not microbial taxonomic and metabolic diversities, can be correlated.

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Notes

  1. GC-clamp sequence: 5′-CGCCCGGGGCGCGCCCCGGGCGGGGCGGGGGCACGGGGGG-′

Abbreviations

CLPP:

Community-level physiological profiling pattern

DGGE:

Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis

EDTA:

Ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid

MANOVA:

Multivariate analysis of variance

PCA:

Principle component analysis

PC:

Principle component

PCR:

polymerase chain reaction

UPGMA:

Unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean

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Acknowledgements

We thank Zongming Su (Guangxi Institute of Botany, Guangxi Zhuangzu Autonomous Region and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, China) and Yuanhe Huang (Youjiang Medical College for Nationalities) for their assistance in the vegetation survey. Many thanks to Jizheng He, Yong Zheng and Jupei Shen (Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Sciences) for technical assistance with molecular analyses, and to Wenxue Wei, Pedro Rocha (Institute of Subtropical Agriculture, the Chinese Academy of Sciences) for their valuable comments on previous versions of the manuscript, and to two anonymous reviewers for their precious comments on the first submitted version of the manuscript. This project was supported by the National Key Basic Research Development Foundation of China (no. 2006CB403208) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences Western Action Program (no.KZCX2-XB2–08) and the Western Light Program of Talent Cultivation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Subtropical Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changsha, 410125, China

    Xun-Yang He, Ke-Lin Wang, Wei Zhang, Zhi-Hui Chen & Hong-Song Chen

  2. Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, 100039, China

    Xun-Yang He

  3. Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100085, China

    Yong-Guan Zhu

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  1. Xun-Yang He
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Correspondence to Ke-Lin Wang.

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He, XY., Wang, KL., Zhang, W. et al. Positive correlation between soil bacterial metabolic and plant species diversity and bacterial and fungal diversity in a vegetation succession on Karst. Plant Soil 307, 123–134 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-008-9590-8

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