Differentiated Contributions of Plant Diversity and Soil Parameters to Shifts in Fungal Taxonomic Composition across Three Altitudinal Transects.

Ren, Y. L.; Cao, Q. B.; Lu, M.; Li, C.

Altitude changes induce climate-driven alterations in plants and soils over geographic distances, which provides a framework for predicting the pattern and mechanism of soil microbial evolution in global change scenarios. This study aimed to identify the respective contributions of plant diversity and edaphic variables to soil fungal assemblages across three altitude transects in southwestern China. Illumina sequencing technology was applied to determine the altitude-induced changes in fungal composition and diversity. We found that the responses of soil fungal compositions to altitude changes varied with taxa. A significant decrease in abundance was observed for the dominant Ascomycota from low to high altitude, following the decreased plant diversity. In contrast, that of subdominant Basidiomycota was rich at medium altitude, Mortierellomycota had rich abundances at high altitude in accordance with the increased water and nutrient levels in soil. At the class level, Sordariomycetes abundance from low to high altitude showed a significant decrease, but Agaricomycetes abundance was rich at medium altitude, while Eurotiomycetes and Tremellomycetes had rich abundances at high altitude. At the genus level, Isaria was rich at medium altitude, and Mortierella and Penicillium had rich abundances at high altitude. In particular, the abundance of Mortierella (Mortierellomycota) was richer than the Trechispora (Basidiomycota) at the high altitude. Furthermore, soil fungal diversity decreased on average by 24.62% with increasing altitude, for which was plant diversity primarily contributed by plant diversity (9.56–15.42%). However, the fungi compositions at the phylum (8.63–14.97%), class (7.71–8.97%), and genus (9.29–11.86%) levels were mainly affected by soil properties. At the phylum level, total nitrogen, available nitrogen, soil organic matter, pH, soil temperature, and soil water content contributed to the variations in fungal composition. Our results suggested that altitude-induced changes of plant and edaphic properties had differential contribution to shifts in the soil fungal assemblage, probably associated with their roles in meeting the metabolic and habitat demand of fungi.

SOIL moisture; PLANT diversity; SOIL temperature; SOIL composition; WATER levels

Microbiology (00262617), 2024, Vol 93, Issue 5, p640

0026-2617

Academic Journal

10.1134/S0026261723600404