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Plant Species–Driven Distribution of Individual Clades of Comammox Nitrospira in a Subtropical Estuarine Wetland

  • Soil Microbiology
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Abstract

Plant species play a crucial role in mediating the activity and community structure of soil microbiomes through differential inputs of litter and rhizosphere exudates, but we have a poor understanding of how plant species influence comammox Nitrospira, a newly discovered ammonia oxidizer with pivotal functionality. Here, we investigate the abundance, diversity, and community structure of comammox Nitrospira underneath five plant species and a bare tidal flat at three soil depths in a subtropical estuarine wetland. Plant species played a critical role in driving the distribution of individual clades of comammox Nitrospira, explaining 59.3% of the variation of community structure. Clade A.1 was widely detected in all samples, while clades A.2.1, A.2.2, A.3 and B showed plant species-dependent distribution patterns. Compared with the native species Cyperus malaccensis, the invasion of Spartina alterniflora increased the network complexity and changed the community structure of comammox Nitrospira, while the invasive effects from Kandelia obovata and Phragmites australis were relatively weak. Soil depths significantly influenced the community structure of comammox Nitrospira, but the effect was much weaker than that from plant species. Altogether, our results highlight the previously unrecognized critical role of plant species in driving the distribution of comammox Nitrospira in a subtropical estuarine wetland.

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Data availability

The raw sequences have been deposited in the DNA Data Bank of Japan under accession number DRA012728.

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Funding

This study received funding from the following sources: National Natural Science Foundation of China (41930756, 42077041) and Fujian Province (2021J011038).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory for Subtropical Mountain Ecology of the Ministry of Science and Technology and Fujian Province, School of Geographical Sciences, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, 350007, China

    Yongxin Lin, Hang-Wei Hu, Ping Yang, Song Wan, Mengmeng Feng, Zi-Yang He & Ji-Zheng He

  2. Institute of Oceanography, College of Geography and Oceanography, Minjiang University, Fuzhou, 350108, China

    Guiping Ye

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  1. Yongxin Lin
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  2. Guiping Ye
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Contributions

Y. Lin and J. He conceived and designed the study; G. Ye, P. Yang, S. Wan, and M. Feng performed the experiments and analyzed the samples; Y. Lin and Z. He conducted the bioinformatic and biostatistical analyses; Y. Lin, H. Hu and J. He drafted the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Ji-Zheng He.

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Lin, Y., Ye, G., Hu, HW. et al. Plant Species–Driven Distribution of Individual Clades of Comammox Nitrospira in a Subtropical Estuarine Wetland. Microb Ecol 85, 209–220 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-021-01940-3

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