Tree Species and Epiphyte Taxa Determine the “Metabolomic niche” of Canopy Suspended Soils in a Species-Rich Lowland Tropical Rainforest

Metabolites

Celine Leroy¹  Julian Donald²  Lucia Fuchslueger³  Leandro Van Langenhove⁴  Erik Verbruggen⁴  Irene Ramírez-Rojas⁴  Ivan A. Janssens⁴  Abdulwahed Fahad Alrefaei⁵  Jordi Sardans⁶  Karel Klem⁶  Otmar Urban⁶  Albert Gargallo-Garriga⁶  Josep Peñuelas⁷ 

[1] AMAP, University Montpellier, CIRAD, CNRS, INRAE, IRD, 34000 Montpellier, France;Centre for Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter, Penryn TR10 9FE, UK;Centre of Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science, University of Vienna, Althanstrasse 14, 1090 Vienna, Austria;Department of Biology, University of Antwerp, BE-2610 Wilrijk, Belgium;Department of Zoology, College of Science, King Saud University, P.O. Box 2455, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia;Global Change Research Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, The Czech Academy of Sciences, Bělidla 986/4a, CZ-60300 Brno, Czech Republic;Global Ecology Unit CREAF-CSIC-UAB, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Bellaterra, 08193 Catalonia, Spain;

关键词: bacteria;    canopy soils;    epiphyte;    French Guiana;    metabolomics;   

DOI  :  10.3390/metabo11110718

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Tropical forests are biodiversity hotspots, but it is not well understood how this diversity is structured and maintained. One hypothesis rests on the generation of a range of metabolic niches, with varied composition, supporting a high species diversity. Characterizing soil metabolomes can reveal fine-scale differences in composition and potentially help explain variation across these habitats. In particular, little is known about canopy soils, which are unique habitats that are likely to be sources of additional biodiversity and biogeochemical cycling in tropical forests. We studied the effects of diverse tree species and epiphytes on soil metabolomic profiles of forest floor and canopy suspended soils in a French Guianese rainforest. We found that the metabolomic profiles of canopy suspended soils were distinct from those of forest floor soils, differing between epiphyte-associated and non-epiphyte suspended soils, and the metabolomic profiles of suspended soils varied with host tree species, regardless of association with epiphyte. Thus, tree species is a key driver of rainforest suspended soil metabolomics. We found greater abundance of metabolites in suspended soils, particularly in groups associated with plants, such as phenolic compounds, and with metabolic pathways related to amino acids, nucleotides, and energy metabolism, due to the greater relative proportion of tree and epiphyte organic material derived from litter and root exudates, indicating a strong legacy of parent biological material. Our study provides evidence for the role of tree and epiphyte species in canopy soil metabolomic composition and in maintaining the high levels of soil metabolome diversity in this tropical rainforest. It is likely that a wide array of canopy microsite-level environmental conditions, which reflect interactions between trees and epiphytes, increase the microscale diversity in suspended soil metabolomes.

【 授权许可】

Unknown