title: Relating belowground microbial composition to the taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional trait distributions of trees in a tropical forest.
abstract: The complexities of the relationships between plant and soil microbial communities remain unresolved. We determined the associations between plant aboveground and belowground (root) distributions and the communities of soil fungi and bacteria found across a diverse tropical forest plot. Soil microbial community composition was correlated with the taxonomic and phylogenetic structure of the aboveground plant assemblages even after controlling for differences in soil characteristics, but these relationships were stronger for fungi than for bacteria. In contrast to expectations, the species composition of roots in our soil core samples was a poor predictor of microbial community composition perhaps due to the patchy, ephemeral, and highly overlapping nature of fine root distributions. Our ability to predict soil microbial composition was not improved by incorporating information on plant functional traits suggesting that the most commonly measured plant traits are not particularly useful for predicting the plot-level variability in belowground microbial communities.
authors.affiliation: Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA.
authors.forename: Albert
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Barberán
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Barnard College, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.|Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Krista L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: McGuire
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.|Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Jeffrey A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Wolf
authors.affiliation: Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA.|Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Apartado 0843-03092, Balboa, Ancon, Panama.
authors.forename: F Andrew
authors.initials: FA
authors.lastname: Jones
authors.affiliation: Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Apartado 0843-03092, Balboa, Ancon, Panama.
authors.forename: Stuart Joseph
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Wright
authors.affiliation: Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Apartado 0843-03092, Balboa, Ancon, Panama.
authors.forename: Benjamin L
authors.initials: BL
authors.lastname: Turner
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Fordham University, New York, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Adam
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Essene
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.|Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Apartado 0843-03092, Balboa, Ancon, Panama.
authors.forename: Stephen P
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Hubbell
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences and Museum of Natural Science, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA.
authors.forename: Brant C
authors.initials: BC
authors.lastname: Faircloth
authors.affiliation: Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA.|Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA.
authors.forename: Noah
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Fierer
mesh_terms: D018407:Bacterial Physiological Phenomena; D044822:Biodiversity; D005658:Fungi / Q000502:physiology*; D064307:Microbiota; D010176:Panama; D018517:Plant Roots / Q000502:physiology; D065947:Rainforest; D012988:Soil Microbiology; D014197:Trees / Q000502:physiology*; D014329:Tropical Climate
keywords: Bacteria; Barro Colorado Island; functional traits; fungi; microbial ecology; phylogeny; roots; soil; trees; tropical forest