title: Analyses of soil microbial community compositions and functional genes reveal potential consequences of natural forest succession.
abstract: The succession of microbial community structure and function is a central ecological topic, as microbes drive the Earth's biogeochemical cycles. To elucidate the response and mechanistic underpinnings of soil microbial community structure and metabolic potential relevant to natural forest succession, we compared soil microbial communities from three adjacent natural forests: a coniferous forest (CF), a mixed broadleaf forest (MBF) and a deciduous broadleaf forest (DBF) on Shennongjia Mountain in central China. In contrary to plant communities, the microbial taxonomic diversity of the DBF was significantly (P < 0.05) higher than those of CF and MBF, rendering their microbial community compositions markedly different. Consistently, microbial functional diversity was also highest in the DBF. Furthermore, a network analysis of microbial carbon and nitrogen cycling genes showed the network for the DBF samples was relatively large and tight, revealing strong couplings between microbes. Soil temperature, reflective of climate regimes, was important in shaping microbial communities at both taxonomic and functional gene levels. As a first glimpse of both the taxonomic and functional compositions of soil microbial communities, our results suggest that microbial community structure and function potentials will be altered by future environmental changes, which have implications for forest succession.
authors.affiliation: 1] Institute of Forestry Ecology, Environment and Protection, and the Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Environment of State Forestry Administration, the Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing 100091, China [2] School of Minerals Processing and Bioengineering, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China.
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cong
authors.affiliation: State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
authors.forename: Yunfeng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: School of Minerals Processing and Bioengineering, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China.
authors.forename: Xueduan
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Forestry Ecology, Environment and Protection, and the Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Environment of State Forestry Administration, the Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing 100091, China.
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Forestry Ecology, Environment and Protection, and the Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Environment of State Forestry Administration, the Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing 100091, China.
authors.forename: Xiao
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: 1] State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China [2] Institute for Environmental Genomics and Department of Botany and Microbiology, the University of Oklahoma, Norman OK 73019.
authors.forename: Jizhong
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Institute of Forestry Ecology, Environment and Protection, and the Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Environment of State Forestry Administration, the Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing 100091, China.
authors.forename: Diqiang
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: School of Minerals Processing and Bioengineering, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China.
authors.forename: Huaqun
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yin
authors.affiliation: State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
authors.forename: Junjun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ding
authors.affiliation: Institute of Forestry Ecology, Environment and Protection, and the Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Environment of State Forestry Administration, the Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing 100091, China.
authors.forename: Yuguang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D017753:Ecosystem; D065928:Forests; D017343:Genes, Plant / Q000502:physiology*; D059013:Microbial Consortia / Q000502:physiology; D010940:Plant Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D012988:Soil Microbiology; D014197:Trees / Q000382:microbiology* / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D010940:Plant Proteins