Available nitrogen is the key factor influencing soil microbial functional gene diversity in tropical rainforest

BMC Microbiology

Yuguang Zhang⁴  Diqiang Li⁴  Ye Deng³  Yide Li¹  Han Xu¹  Hui Lu⁴  Xueduan Liu²  Jing Cong⁴ 

[1]Institute of Tropical Forestry, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Guangzhou 510520, China

[2]School of Minerals Processing and Bioengineering, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China

[3]Research Center for Eco-Environmental Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China

[4]Institute of Forestry Ecology, Environment and Protection, and the Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Environment of State Forestry Administration, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing 100091, China

关键词: Available nitrogen;    Microbial metabolic potential;    Microbial functional gene diversity;    GeoChip;    Tropical rainforest;   

Others  :  1227588
DOI  :  10.1186/s12866-015-0491-8

 received in 2015-01-10, accepted in 2015-07-21,  发布年份 2015

【 摘 要 】

Background

Tropical rainforests cover over 50 % of all known plant and animal species and provide a variety of key resources and ecosystem services to humans, largely mediated by metabolic activities of soil microbial communities. A deep analysis of soil microbial communities and their roles in ecological processes would improve our understanding on biogeochemical elemental cycles. However, soil microbial functional gene diversity in tropical rainforests and causative factors remain unclear. GeoChip, contained almost all of the key functional genes related to biogeochemical cycles, could be used as a specific and sensitive tool for studying microbial gene diversity and metabolic potential. In this study, soil microbial functional gene diversity in tropical rainforest was analyzed by using GeoChip technology.

Results

Gene categories detected in the tropical rainforest soils were related to different biogeochemical processes, such as carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) cycling. The relative abundance of genes related to C and P cycling detected mostly derived from the cultured bacteria. C degradation gene categories for substrates ranging from labile C to recalcitrant C were all detected, and gene abundances involved in many recalcitrant C degradation gene categories were significantly (P < 0.05) different among three sampling sites. The relative abundance of genes related to N cycling detected was significantly (P < 0.05) different, mostly derived from the uncultured bacteria. The gene categories related to ammonification had a high relative abundance. Both canonical correspondence analysis and multivariate regression tree analysis showed that soil available N was the most correlated with soil microbial functional gene structure.

Conclusions

Overall high microbial functional gene diversity and different soil microbial metabolic potential for different biogeochemical processes were considered to exist in tropical rainforest. Soil available N could be the key factor in shaping the soil microbial functional gene structure and metabolic potential.

【 授权许可】

   
2015 Cong et al.

【 图 表 】

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