title: Water content differences have stronger effects than plant functional groups on soil bacteria in a steppe ecosystem.
abstract: Many investigations across natural and artificial plant diversity gradients have reported that both soil physicochemical factors and plant community composition affect soil microbial communities. To test the effect of plant diversity loss on soil bacterial communities, we conducted a five-year plant functional group removal experiment in a steppe ecosystem in Inner Mongolia (China). We found that the number and composition type of plant functional groups had no effect on bacterial diversity and community composition, or on the relative abundance of major taxa. In contrast, bacterial community patterns were significantly structured by soil water content differences among plots. Our results support researches that suggest that water availability is the key factor structuring soil bacterial communities in this semi-arid ecosystem.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Forest and Soil Ecology, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China.
authors.forename: Ximei
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, United States of America.
authors.forename: Albert
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Barberán
authors.affiliation: School of Biology and Chemical Engineering, Jiangsu University of Science and Technology, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu 212018, China.
authors.forename: Xunzhi
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093, China.
authors.forename: Guangming
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Forest and Soil Ecology, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China; State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093, China.
authors.forename: Xingguo
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Han
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000145:classification; D002681:China; D065948:Grassland; D010944:Plants / Q000145:classification; D012987:Soil / Q000737:chemistry*; D012988:Soil Microbiology; D014867:Water / Q000032:analysis*
chemical_list: D012987:Soil; D014867:Water