title: Environmental Filtering Process Has More Important Roles than Dispersal Limitation in Shaping Large-Scale Prokaryotic Beta Diversity Patterns of Grassland Soils.
abstract: Despite the utmost importance of microorganisms in maintaining ecosystem functioning and their ubiquitous distribution, our knowledge of the large-scale pattern of microbial diversity is limited, particularly in grassland soils. In this study, the microbial communities of 99 soil samples spanning over 3000 km across grassland ecosystems in northern China were investigated using high-throughput sequencing to analyze the beta diversity pattern and the underlying ecological processes. The microbial communities were dominated by Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Acidobacteria, Chloroflexi, and Planctomycetes across all the soil samples. Spearman's correlation analysis indicated that climatic factors and soil pH were significantly correlated with the dominant microbial taxa, while soil microbial richness was positively linked to annual precipitation. The environmental divergence-dissimilarity relationship was significantly positive, suggesting the importance of environmental filtering processes in shaping soil microbial communities. Structural equation modeling found that the deterministic process played a more important role than the stochastic process on the pattern of soil microbial beta diversity, which supported the predictions of niche theory. Partial mantel test analysis have showed that the contribution of independent environmental variables has a significant effect on beta diversity, while independent spatial distance has no such relationship, confirming that the deterministic process was dominant in structuring soil microbial communities. Overall, environmental filtering process has more important roles than dispersal limitation in shaping microbial beta diversity patterns in the grassland soils.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100085, China.|Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100044, China.
authors.forename: Peng
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100085, China.
authors.forename: Jun-Tao
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Veterinary and Agricultural Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, 3010, Australia.
authors.forename: Hang-Wei
authors.initials: HW
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100085, China.
authors.forename: Yuan-Ming
authors.initials: YM
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100085, China.
authors.forename: Yuan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ge
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100085, China. jpshen@rcees.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Ju-Pei
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100085, China. jzhe@rcees.ac.cn.|Faculty of Veterinary and Agricultural Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, 3010, Australia. jzhe@rcees.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Ji-Zheng
authors.initials: JZ
authors.lastname: He
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000145:classification* / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000378:metabolism; D044822:Biodiversity; D055598:Chemical Phenomena; D002681:China; D002980:Climate; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D065948:Grassland; D006863:Hydrogen-Ion Concentration; D006109:Poaceae / Q000737:chemistry / Q000382:microbiology*; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S / Q000235:genetics; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D012987:Soil / Q000737:chemistry*; D012988:Soil Microbiology
chemical_list: D004269:DNA, Bacterial; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S; D012987:Soil
keywords: Beta diversity; Dispersal limitation; Environmental filtering; Grassland; Richness; Soil microbial communities