title: The biogeography of soil archaeal communities on the eastern Tibetan Plateau.
abstract: The biogeographical distribution of soil bacterial communities has been widely investigated. However, there has been little study of the biogeography of soil archaeal communities on a regional scale. Here, using high-throughput sequencing, we characterized the archaeal communities of 94 soil samples across the eastern Tibetan Plateau. Thaumarchaeota was the predominant archael phylum in all the soils, and Halobacteria was dominant only in dry soils. Archaeal community composition was significantly correlated with soil moisture content and C:N ratio, and archaeal phylotype richness was negatively correlated with soil moisture content (r = -0.47, P < 0.01). Spatial distance, a potential measure of the legacy effect of evolutionary and dispersal factors, was less important than measured environmental factors in determining the broad scale archaeal community pattern. These results indicate that soil moisture and C:N ratio are the key factors structuring soil archaeal communities on the eastern Tibetan Plateau. Our findings suggest that archaeal communities have adjusted their distributions rapidly enough to reach range equilibrium in relation to past environmental changes e.g. in water availability and soil nutrient status. This responsiveness may allow better prediction of future responses of soil archaea to environmental change in these sensitive ecosystems.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Soil and Sustainable Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, East Beijing Road 71, Nanjing 210008, China.
authors.forename: Yu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Seoul National University, Gwanak, Seoul 151, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Jonathan M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Adams
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Soil and Sustainable Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, East Beijing Road 71, Nanjing 210008, China.
authors.forename: Yingying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ni
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Soil and Sustainable Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, East Beijing Road 71, Nanjing 210008, China.
authors.forename: Teng
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, Peking University, 5 Yiheyuan Road, Beijing 100871, China.
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Jing
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Adaptation and Evolution of Plateau Biota, Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 23 Xinning Road, Xining 810008, China.
authors.forename: Litong
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, Peking University, 5 Yiheyuan Road, Beijing 100871, China.|Key Laboratory of Adaptation and Evolution of Plateau Biota, Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 23 Xinning Road, Xining 810008, China.
authors.forename: Jin-Sheng
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: He
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Soil and Sustainable Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, East Beijing Road 71, Nanjing 210008, China.
authors.forename: Haiyan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Chu
mesh_terms: D001105:Archaea / Q000235:genetics*; D057166:High-Throughput Screening Assays; D012987:Soil / Q000737:chemistry; D012988:Soil Microbiology; D018609:Tibet
chemical_list: D012987:Soil