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Discrepant Effects of Flooding on Assembly Processes of Abundant and Rare Communities in Riparian Soils

  • Soil Microbiology
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Abstract

Numerous rare species coexist with a few abundant species in microbial communities and together play an essential role in riparian ecosystems. Relatively little is understood, however, about the nature of assembly processes of these communities and how they respond to a fluctuating environment. In this study, drivers controlling the assembly of abundant and rare subcommunities for bacteria and archaea in a riparian zone were determined, and their resulting patterns on these processes were analyzed. Abundant and rare bacteria and archaea showed a consistent variation in the community structure along the riparian elevation gradient, which was closely associated with flooding frequency. The community assembly of abundant bacteria was not affected by any measured environmental variables, while soil moisture and ratio of submerged time to exposed time were the two most decisive factors determining rare bacterial community. Assembly of abundant archaeal community was also determined by these two factors, whereas rare archaea was significantly associated with soil carbon–nitrogen ratio and total carbon content. The assembly process of abundant and rare bacterial subcommunities was driven respectively by dispersal limitation and variable selection. Undominated processes and dispersal limitation dominated the assembly of abundant archaea, whereas homogeneous selection primarily driven rare archaea. Flooding may therefore play a crucial role in determining the community assembly processes by imposing disturbances and shaping soil niches. Overall, this study reveals the assembly patterns of abundant and rare communities in the riparian zone and provides further insight into the importance of their respective roles in maintaining a stable ecosystem during times of environmental perturbations.

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Data Availability

Sequences were deposited in the National Center for Biotechnology Information Sequence Read Archive (https://submit.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/subs/sra/) under accession number PRJNA863415 for bacteria, and PRJNA394057 for archaea.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers 51908145 and 41977153), the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (grant number 2022A1515010828), and Science and Technology Projects in Guangzhou (grant number 202201020580).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Environmental Research at Greater Bay, Key Laboratory for Water Quality and Conservation of the Pearl River Delta, Ministry of Education, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou, 510006, China

    Fei Ye, Zhaohong Sun, Jiapeng Wu, Yiguo Hong & Yu Wang

  2. Department of Agronomy, Food, Natural Resources, Animals and Environment (DAFNAE), University of Padova, Padua, Italy

    Selina Sterup Moore

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  1. Fei Ye
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Contributions

YW, FY, and YH designed the study. FY and YW performed the field work and laboratory work. FY, ZS, and YW analyzed the data. FY and YW wrote the manuscript. SM, JW, and YH contributed to the writing. All authors have reviewed the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Yiguo Hong or Yu Wang.

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Ye, F., Sun, Z., Moore, S.S. et al. Discrepant Effects of Flooding on Assembly Processes of Abundant and Rare Communities in Riparian Soils. Microb Ecol 86, 1164–1175 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-022-02152-z

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