Analyses of soil microbial community compositions and functional genes reveal potential consequences of natural forest succession

• DOI: 10.1038/srep10007
• Publication Date: 2015-05-06T11:04:19Z
• Authors: Jing Cong; Yunfeng Yang; Xueduan Liu; Hui Lu; Xiao Liu; Jizhong Zhou; Diqiang Li; Huaqun Yin; Junjun Ding; Yuguang Zhang
• Keywords: Biogeochemical Cycle; Functional Diversity

Abstract The succession of microbial community structure and function is a central ecological topic, as microbes drive the Earth’s biogeochemical cycles. To elucidate response mechanistic underpinnings soil metabolic potential relevant to natural forest succession, we compared communities from three adjacent forests: coniferous (CF), mixed broadleaf (MBF) deciduous (DBF) on Shennongjia Mountain in China. In contrary plant communities, taxonomic diversity DBF was significantly ( P < 0.05) higher than those CF MBF, rendering their compositions markedly different. Consistently, functional also highest DBF. Furthermore, network analysis carbon nitrogen cycling genes showed for samples relatively large tight, revealing strong couplings between microbes. Soil temperature, reflective climate regimes, important shaping at both gene levels. As first glimpse our results suggest that potentials will be altered by future environmental changes, which have implications succession.