Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Different vegetation communities did not amplify spatial heterogeneity of soil microbial diversity and community in a subtropical Sphagnum-dominated peatland

  • Research Article
  • Published:
Plant and Soil Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Background and Aims

Critical peatland functions are intricately linked to biogeochemical processes mediated by soil microbes. The belowground microbial activities are associated and interacted with aboveground vegetation types. Vegetation shifts from Sphagnum mosses to vascular plants in peatlands may alter soil microbial community, leading to changes in ecological functions. However, our knowledge in this area is still limited.

Methods

We selected four sites (two core areas and two marginal areas) in the Sphagnum-dominated wetland in Zhejiang Hynobius amjiensis National Nature Reserve. At each site, peat soils under three common peatland vegetation communities (OW: only Sphagnum; HW: herbaceous plants with Sphagnum carpet; SW: shrubs with Sphagnum carpet) were collected at two depths. A high-throughput sequencing method was adopted to investigate the alteration in soil bacterial and fungal communities.

Results

Vascular plant did not significantly alter soil properties and microbial α-diversity, given that mosses are still the dominant plants and have higher resistance levels to multiple environmental-changes than vascular plants. The features of bacterial co-occurrence network in HW revealed higher stability than that in OW and SW, indicating that herbaceous plants may contribute to the stable coexistence with Sphagnum. The microbial diversity, community structure and putative functions differed between core and marginal areas of the peatland.

Conclusion

The results demonstrated that the spatial heterogeneity of environmental factors may play a more important role in microbial activities than vegetation types at the early successional stages. These insights provide a novel perspective for development of management practices to preserve subtropical peatlands.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article. Sequences were submitted to the Genome Sequence Archive (GSA) database under accession number CRA005854 and CRA005855.

Abbreviations

OW:

Only Sphagnum

HW:

Herbaceous plants with Sphagnum carpet

SW:

Shrubs with Sphagnum carpet

ASV:

Amplicon sequence variant

ANOVA:

One-way analysis of variance

NMDS:

Non-metric multidimensional scaling

PERMANOVA:

Permutational multivariate analysis of variance

PCA:

Principal component analysis

References

  • Bastian M, Heymann S, Jacomy M (2009) Gephi: an open source software for exploring and manipulating networks. Presented at the International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media

  • Benjamini Y, Hochberg Y (1995) Controlling the false discovery rate - a practical and powerful approach to multiple testing. J R Stat Soc B 57:289–300

    MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Bennett JA, Klironomos J (2019) Mechanisms of plant-soil feedback: interactions among biotic and abiotic drivers. New Phytol 222(1):91–96

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bokulich NA, Kaehler BD, Rideout JR, Dillon M, Bolyen E, Knight R, Huttley GA, Caporaso JG (2018) Optimizing taxonomic classification of marker-gene amplicon sequences with QIIME 2’s q2-feature-classifier plugin. Microbiome 6(1):90

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Bolyen E, Rideout JR, Dillon MR, Bokulich NA, Abnet CC, Al-Ghalith GA, Alexander H, Alm EJ, Arumugam M, Asnicar F, Bai Y, Bisanz JE, Bittinger K, Brejnrod A, Brislawn CJ, Brown CT, Callahan BJ, Caraballo-Rodriguez AM, Chase J, Cope EK, Da SR, Diener C, Dorrestein PC, Douglas GM, Durall DM, Duvallet C, Edwardson CF, Ernst M, Estaki M, Fouquier J, Gauglitz JM, Gibbons SM, Gibson DL, Gonzalez A, Gorlick K, Guo J, Hillmann B, Holmes S, Holste H, Huttenhower C, Huttley GA, Janssen S, Jarmusch AK, Jiang L, Kaehler BD, Kang KB, Keefe CR, Keim P, Kelley ST, Knights D, Koester I, Kosciolek T, Kreps J, Langille M, Lee J, Ley R, Liu YX, Loftfield E, Lozupone C, Maher M, Marotz C, Martin BD, McDonald D, McIver LJ, Melnik AV, Metcalf JL, Morgan SC, Morton JT, Naimey AT, Navas-Molina JA, Nothias LF, Orchanian SB, Pearson T, Peoples SL, Petras D, Preuss ML, Pruesse E, Rasmussen LB, Rivers A, Robeson MN, Rosenthal P, Segata N, Shaffer M, Shiffer A, Sinha R, Song SJ, Spear JR, Swafford AD, Thompson LR, Torres PJ, Trinh P, Tripathi A, Turnbaugh PJ, Ul-Hasan S, van der Hooft J, Vargas F, Vazquez-Baeza Y, Vogtmann E, von Hippel M, Walters W, Wan Y, Wang M, Warren J, Weber KC, Williamson C, Willis AD, Xu ZZ, Zaneveld JR, Zhang Y, Zhu Q, Knight R, Caporaso JG (2019) Reproducible, interactive, scalable and extensible microbiome data science using QIIME 2. Nat Biotechnol 37(8):852–857

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Callahan BJ, McMurdie PJ, Rosen MJ, Han AW, Johnson AJ, Holmes SP (2016) DADA2: High-resolution sample inference from Illumina amplicon data. Nat Methods 13(7):581–583

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Cao T, Fang Y, Chen Y, Kong X, Yang J, Alharbi H, Kuzyakov Y, Tian X (2022) Synergy of saprotrophs with mycorrhiza for litter decomposition and hotspot formation depends on nutrient availability in the rhizosphere. Geoderma 410:115662

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Chen C, Yang J, Wu Y, Fan Z, Lu W, Chen S, Yu L (2016) The breeding ecology of a critically endangered salamander, Hynobius amjiensis (Caudata: Hynobiidae), endemic to eastern China. Asian Herpetol Res 7(1):53–58

    Google Scholar 

  • Chen J, Wang P, Wang C, Wang X, Miao L, Liu S, Yuan Q, Sun S (2020) Fungal community demonstrates stronger dispersal limitation and less network connectivity than bacterial community in sediments along a large river. Environ Microbiol 22(3):832–849

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Conway JR, Lex A, Gehlenborg N (2017) UpSetR: an R package for the visualization of intersecting sets and their properties. Bioinformatics 33(18):2938–2940

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Coyte KZ, Schluter J, Foster KR (2015) The ecology of the microbiome: networks, competition, and stability. Science 350(6261):663–666

    Article  CAS  PubMed  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Csardi G, Nepusz T (2006) The igraph software package for complex network research. Int J Syst Sci 1695(5):1–9

    Google Scholar 

  • Dalcin Martins P, Hoyt DW, Bansal S, Mills CT, Tfaily M, Tangen BA, Finocchiaro RG, Johnston MD, McAdams BC, Solensky MJ, Smith GJ, Chin YP, Wilkins MJ (2017) Abundant carbon substrates drive extremely high sulfate reduction rates and methane fluxes in Prairie Pothole Wetlands. Global Change Biol 23(8):3107–3120

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Dargie GC, Lewis SL, Lawson IT, Mitchard ET, Page SE, Bocko YE, Ifo SA (2017) Age, extent and carbon storage of the central Congo Basin peatland complex. Nature 542(7639):86–90

    Article  CAS  PubMed  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • De Deyn GB, Van der Putten WH (2005) Linking aboveground and belowground diversity. Trends Ecol Evol 20(11):625–633

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • de Vries FT, Griffiths RI, Bailey M, Craig H, Girlanda M, Gweon HS, Hallin S, Kaisermann A, Keith AM, Kretzschmar M, Lemanceau P, Lumini E, Mason KE, Oliver A, Ostle N, Prosser JI, Thion C, Thomson B, Bardgett RD (2018) Soil bacterial networks are less stable under drought than fungal networks. Nature Commun 9(1):3033

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Dieleman CM, Branfireun BA, McLaughlin JW, Lindo Z (2015) Climate change drives a shift in peatland ecosystem plant community: Implications for ecosystem function and stability. Global Change Biol 21(1):388–395

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Ding L, Wang Z, Zhou G, Du Q (2006) Monitoring Phyllostachys pubescens stands expansion in National Nature Reserve of Mount Tianmu by remote sensing. J Zhejiang For Coll 23(03):297–300

    Google Scholar 

  • Freeman C, Ostle N, Kang H (2001) An enzymic “latch” on a global carbon store. Nature 409(6817):149–149

    Article  CAS  PubMed  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Gravuer K, Eskelinen A, Winbourne JB, Harrison SP (2020) Vulnerability and resistance in the spatial heterogeneity of soil microbial communities under resource additions. Proc Natl Acad Sci 117(13):7263–7270

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Gu H, Ma X, Wang J, Du Z, Lou X (1999) Research on population number and dynamics of Hynobius amjiensis. Sichuan J Zool 18(3):104–106 (In Chinese with English abstract)

    Google Scholar 

  • Gu H (1992) A new species in the genus Hynobius, H. amjiensis. In: China Zoological Society (Ed.). Zoological Science Research Beijing: Chinese Forestry Press, pp 39–43

  • Guan Y, Bai J, Tian X (2021) Integrating ecological and socio-economic systems by carbon metabolism in a typical wetland city of China. J Clean Prod 279:123342

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harrell Jr FE, Harrell Jr MFE (2019) Package ‘Hmisc’. CRAN2018:235–236

  • Ho J, Chambers LG (2019) Altered soil microbial community composition and function in two shrub-encroached marshes with different physicochemical gradients. Soil Biol Biochem 130:122–131

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • IUCN SSC Amphibian Specialist Group (2021) Hynobius amjiensis. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. e.T59089A63876823. https://doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2021-3.RLTS.T59089A63876823.en

  • Katoh K, Misawa K, Kuma K, Miyata T (2002) MAFFT: a novel method for rapid multiple sequence alignment based on fast Fourier transform. Nucleic Acids Res 30(14):3059–3066

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Koljalg U, Nilsson RH, Abarenkov K, Tedersoo L, Taylor AF, Bahram M, Bates ST, Bruns TD, Bengtsson-Palme J, Callaghan TM, Douglas B, Drenkhan T, Eberhardt U, Duenas M, Grebenc T, Griffith GW, Hartmann M, Kirk PM, Kohout P, Larsson E, Lindahl BD, Lucking R, Martin MP, Matheny PB, Nguyen NH, Niskanen T, Oja J, Peay KG, Peintner U, Peterson M, Poldmaa K, Saag L, Saar I, Schussler A, Scott JA, Senes C, Smith ME, Suija A, Taylor DL, Telleria MT, Weiss M, Larsson KH (2013) Towards a unified paradigm for sequence-based identification of fungi. Mol Ecol 22(21):5271–5277

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Laine AM, Lindholm T, Nilsson M, Kutznetsov O, Jassey VEJ, Tuittila ES, Gilliam F (2021) Functional diversity and trait composition of vascular plant and Sphagnum moss communities during peatland succession across land uplift regions. J Ecol 109(4):1774–1789

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Li J, Li M, Zhao L, Sun X, Gao M, Sheng L, Bian H (2022) Characteristics of soil carbon emissions and bacterial community composition in peatlands at different stages of vegetation succession. Sci Total Environ 839:156242

    Article  CAS  PubMed  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Louca S, Parfrey LW, Doebeli M (2016) Decoupling function and taxonomy in the global ocean microbiome. Science 353:1272–1277

    Article  CAS  PubMed  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Ma XY, Xu H, Cao ZY, Shu L, Zhu RL (2022) Will climate change cause the global peatland to expand or contract? Evidence from the habitat shift pattern of Sphagnum mosses. Global Change Biol 28(21):6419–6432

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Maaroufi NI, Nordin A, Palmqvist K, Hasselquist NJ, Forsmark B, Rosenstock NP, Wallander H, Gundale MJ (2019) Anthropogenic nitrogen enrichment enhances soil carbon accumulation by impacting saprotrophs rather than ectomycorrhizal fungal activity. Global Change Biol 25(9):2900–2914

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Marschner P (2021) Processes in submerged soils – linking redox potential, soil organic matter turnover and plants to nutrient cycling. Plant Soil 464(1):1–12

    Article  MathSciNet  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Minasny B, Berglund Ö, Connolly J, Hedley C, de Vries F, Gimona A, Kempen B, Kidd D, Lilja H, Malone B, McBratney A, Roudier P, O’Rourke S, Rudiyanto PJ, Poggio L, ten Caten A, Thompson D, Tuve C, Widyatmanti W (2019) Digital mapping of peatlands – A critical review. Earth Sci Rev 196:102870

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Muyzer G, Stams AJM (2008) The ecology and biotechnology of sulphate-reducing bacteria. Nat Rev Microbiol 6(6):441–454

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • National Forestry and Grassland Administration (2021) List of National Key Protected Wild Species. 2021-02-08. http://www.forestry.gov.cn/main/151/20210225/112119430483186.html

  • Neori A, Agami M (2016) The functioning of rhizosphere biota in wetlands – a review. Wetlands 37(4):615–633

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nguyen N, Song Z, Bates S, Branco S, Tedersoo L, Menke J, Schilling J, Kennedy P (2016) FUNGuild: an open annotation tool for parsing fungal community datasets by ecological guild. Fungal Ecol 20:241–248

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Oksanen J, Kindt R, Legendre P, O’Hara B, Stevens MHH, Oksanen MJ, Suggests M (2007) The vegan package. Commun Ecol Packag 10:631–637

    Google Scholar 

  • Olesen JM, Bascompte J, Dupont YL, Jordano P (2007) The modularity of pollination networks. Proc Natl Acad Sci 104(50):19891–19896

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Quast C, Pruesse E, Yilmaz P, Gerken J, Schweer T, Yarza P, Peplies J, Glockner FO (2013) The SILVA ribosomal RNA gene database project: improved data processing and web-based tools. Nucleic Acids Res 41(Database issue):D590-596

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Ritson JP, Alderson DM, Robinson CH, Burkitt AE, Heinemeyer A, Stimson AG, Gallego-Sala A, Harris A, Quillet A, Malik AA, Cole B, Robroek BJM, Heppell CM, Rivett DW, Chandler DM, Elliott DR, Shuttleworth EL, Lilleskov E, Cox F, Clay GD, Diack I, Rowson J, Pratscher J, Lloyd JR, Walker JS, Belyea LR, Dumont MG, Longden M, Bell NGA, Artz RRE, Bardgett RD, Griffiths RI, Andersen R, Chadburn SE, Hutchinson SM, Page SE, Thom T, Burn W, Evans MG (2021) Towards a microbial process-based understanding of the resilience of peatland ecosystem service provisioning - A research agenda. Sci Total Environ 759:143467

    Article  CAS  PubMed  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Salimi S, Almuktar SAAAN, Scholz M (2021) Impact of climate change on wetland ecosystems: A critical review of experimental wetlands. J Environ Manage 286:112160

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Serrano-Silva N, Sarria-GuzmÁN Y, Dendooven L, Luna-Guido M (2014) Methanogenesis and methanotrophy in soil: A review. Pedosphere 24(3):291–307

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Shannon P, Markiel A, Ozier O, Baliga NS, Wang JT, Ramage D, Amin N, Schwikowski B, Ideker T (2003) Cytoscape: a software environment for integrated models of biomolecular interaction networks. Genome Res 13(11):2498–2504

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Sokol NW, Slessarev E, Marschmann GL, Nicolas A, Blazewicz SJ, Brodie EL, Firestone MK, Foley MM, Hestrin R, Hungate BA, Koch BJ, Stone BW, Sullivan MB, Zablocki O, Consortium LSM, Pett-Ridge J (2022) Life and death in the soil microbiome: How ecological processes influence biogeochemistry. Nat Rev Microbiol 20(7):415–430

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Sui X, Zhang R, Frey B, Yang L, Liu Y, Ni H, Li MH (2021) Soil physicochemical properties drive the variation in soil microbial communities along a forest successional series in a degraded wetland in northeastern China. Ecol Evol 11(5):2194–2208

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • van der Velde Y, Temme A, Nijp JJ, Braakhekke MC, van Voorn GAK, Dekker SC, Dolman AJ, Wallinga J, Devito KJ, Kettridge N, Mendoza CA, Kooistra L, Soons MB, Teuling AJ (2021) Emerging forest-peatland bistability and resilience of European peatland carbon stores. Proc Natl Acad Sci 118(38):e2101742118

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Verhoeven JT, Arheimer B, Yin C, Hefting MM (2006) Regional and global concerns over wetlands and water quality. Trends Ecol Evol 21(2):96–103

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Wickham H (2016) ggplot2. Springer Cham, Switzerland

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Wu D, Bai H, Zhao C, Peng M, Chi Q, Dai Y, Gao F, Zhang Q, Huang M, Niu B (2023) The characteristics of soil microbial co-occurrence networks across a high-latitude forested wetland ecotone in China. Front Microbiol 14:1160683

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Ye G, Chen J, Yang P, Hu HW, He ZY, Wang D, Cao D, Zhang W, Wu B, Wu Y, Wei X, Lin Y (2023) Non-native plant species invasion increases the importance of deterministic pocesses in fungal community assembly in a coastal wetland. Microb Ecol 86(2):1120–1131

    Article  PubMed  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Zeh L, Igel MT, Schellekens J, Limpens J, Bragazza L, Kalbitz K (2020) Vascular plants affect properties and decomposition of moss-dominated peat, particularly at elevated temperatures. Biogeosciences 17(19):4797–4813

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Zhang Y, Ma C, Zhao N, Shi W, Liu D, Zhu C, Zheng C (2015) Late Holocene Rb/Sr ratios as a paleoclimate procy in the Qianmutian Peat of Tianmu Mountains, Zhejiang Province. J Zhejiang a&f Univ 39(01):97–107

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhang W, Kang X, Kang E, Audet J, Davidson TA, Zhang X, Yan L, Li Y, Yan Z, Zhang K, Wang J, Hu Z (2021) Soil water content, carbon, and nitrogen determine the abundances of methanogens, methanotrophs, and methane emission in the Zoige alpine wetland. J Soils Sed 22(2):470–481

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhang L, Li Y, Sun X, Adams JM, Wang L, Zhang H, Chu H (2023) More robust co-occurrence patterns and stronger dispersal limitations of bacterial communities in wet than dry seasons of riparian wetlands. mSystems 8(2):e01187-22

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

Download references

Funding

This study was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42307379, 32270215 and 41571049) and Zhejiang Hynobius amjiensis National Nature Reserve Management Office (ZJMY 2021-082).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Life and Environmental Sciences, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, China

    Mengjie Yu, Xinrui Yue, Ting Wang & Yuhuan Wu

  2. Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Qunli Shen

  3. School of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

    Qunli Shen

  4. Zhejiang Hynobius Amjiensis Nature Reserve Management Office, Huzhou, China

    Xianting Wang

Authors
  1. Mengjie Yu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Xinrui Yue
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Ting Wang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Qunli Shen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Xianting Wang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Yuhuan Wu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

Mengjie Yu: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Software, Visualization, Writing – original draft. Yuexin Rui: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology. Ting Wang: Methodology, Writing – review & editing. Qunli Shen: Writing – review & editing. Xianting Wang: Resources, Supervision. Yuhuan Wu: Conceptualization, Supervision, Funding acquisition, Validation, Writing – review & editing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yuhuan Wu.

Ethics declarations

Competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Additional information

Responsible Editor: Elizabeth M Baggs.

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary Information

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary file1 (DOCX 69971 KB)

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Yu, M., Yue, X., Wang, T. et al. Different vegetation communities did not amplify spatial heterogeneity of soil microbial diversity and community in a subtropical Sphagnum-dominated peatland. Plant Soil 495, 271–285 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-023-06324-9

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-023-06324-9

Keywords

Search

Navigation