Revealing the linkages between community assembly and species coexistence, which is crucial for the understanding of ecosystem diversity and functioning, is a fundamental but rarely investigated subject in microbial ecology. Here we examined archaeal, bacterial, and fungal community assembly in adjacent pairs of maize (water-unsaturated) and rice (watersaturated) fields across different habitats and regions throughout Eastern China. The high-throughput sequencing dataset was analyzed by variation partitioning, null model, and neutral community model analyses. We demonstrated that microbial community assembly was governed more by species sorting than by dispersal limitation in maize fields, and to a lesser extent in rice fields. The relative importance of species sorting in maize soils was greater at low latitudes than at high latitudes, while rice soils exhibited an opposite trend. Microbial co-occurrence associations tended to be higher when communities were primarily driven by dispersal limitation relative to species sorting. There were greater community dissimilarities between maize and rice soils in low-latitude regions, which was consistent with the higher proportion of negative edges in the correlation networks. The results indicate that a balance between species sorting and dispersal limitation mediates species coexistence in soil microbiomes. This study enhances our understanding of contemporary coexistence theory in microbial ecosystems.

Revealing the fundamental mechanisms for maintaining and generating species diversity is critical to determine the links between community stability and ecosystem function (Hanson, Fuhrman,

Summary The factors determining stochastic and deterministic processes that drive microbial community structure, specifically the balance of abundant and rare bacterial taxa, remain underexplored. Here we examined biogeographic patterns of abundant and rare bacterial taxa and explored environmental factors influencing their community assembly processes in agricultural fields across eastern China. More phylogenetic turnover correlating with spatial distance was observed in abundant than rare sub‐communities. Homogeneous selection was the main assembly process for both the abundant and rare sub‐communities; however, the abundant sub‐community was more tightly clustered phylogenetically and was more sensitive to dispersal limitations than the rare sub‐community. Rare sub‐community of rice fields and abundant sub‐community of maize fields were more governed by stochastic assembly processes, which showed higher operational taxonomic unit richness. We propose a conceptual paradigm wherein soil pH and mean annual temperature mediate the assembly of the abundant and rare sub‐communities respectively. A higher soil pH leads to deterministic assembly of the abundant sub‐community. For the rare sub‐community, the dominance of stochasticity in low‐temperature regions indicates weaker niche‐based exclusion and the arrival of more evolutionary lineages. These findings suggest that the community assembly processes for abundant and rare bacterial taxa are dependent on distinct environmental variables in agro‐ecosystems.

Incorporation of plant residues strongly enhances the methane production and emission from flooded rice fields. Temperature and residue type are important factors that regulate residue decomposition and CH 4 production. However, the response of the methanogenic archaeal community to these factors in rice field soil is not well understood. In the present experiment, the structure of the archaeal community was determined during the decomposition of rice root and straw residues in anoxic rice field soil incubated at three temperatures (15°C, 30°C, and 45°C). More CH 4 was produced in the straw treatment than root treatment. Increasing the temperature from 15°C to 45°C enhanced CH 4 production. Terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism analyses in combination with cloning and sequencing of 16S rRNA genes showed that Methanosarcinaceae developed early in the incubations, whereas Methanosaetaceae became more abundant in the later stages. Methanosarcinaceae and Methanosaetaceae seemed to be better adapted at 15°C and 30°C, respectively, while the thermophilic Methanobacteriales and rice cluster I methanogens were significantly enhanced at 45°C. Straw residues promoted the growth of Methanosarcinaceae, whereas the root residues favored Methanosaetaceae. In conclusion, our study revealed a highly dynamic structure of the methanogenic archaeal community during plant residue decomposition. The in situ concentration of acetate (and possibly of H 2 ) seems to be the key factor that regulates the shift of methanogenic community.Plant residues are a by-product of rice production. The incorporation of plant residues into rice field soil is a common practice in Asian agriculture that could help to maintain the soil fertility. However, the incorporation of plant residues strongly enhances the methane emissions from rice fields (8,13,38,39). It has been shown that the decomposition of straw residues in rice field soil is performed by a spatially wellorganized consortium: the hydrolysis and primary fermentation reactions are mainly localized on the straw residue while the syntrophic and methanogenic reactions occur in the adjacent soil (14). There was an astonishing richness of archaeal diversity present on rice roots and in the surrounding paddy soil (4,16,17,29). Although it was shown that the structure of methanogenic archaea in the rice field soil remained relatively constant over the growing season of rice plants (24), the incorporation of rice straw selectively enhanced the growth of Methanosarcinaceae and Methanobacteriales and suppressed rice cluster I (RC-I) methanogens and Methanomicrobiales (7). Apparently, the members of the methanogenic community respond differently to the incorporation of organic residues. Rice straw and root residues are the major forms of organic residues incorporated into rice field soils. It was shown that the decomposition of root residues was slower than straw residues (26). However, it is unknown whether such a difference in the rates of decomposition is also reflected in the structure ...

Microorganisms living in anoxic rice soils contribute 10 to 25% of global methane emissions. The most important carbon source for CH4 production is plant-derived carbon that enters soil as root exudates and debris. Pulse labeling of rice plants with 13CO2 resulted in incorporation of 13C into the ribosomal RNA of Rice Cluster I Archaea in the soil, indicating that this archaeal group plays a key role in CH4 production from plant-derived carbon. This group of microorganisms has not yet been isolated but appears to be of global environmental importance.

The incorporation of rice residues into paddy fields strongly enhances methane production and emissions. Although the decomposition processes of plant residues in rice field soil has been documented, the structure and dynamics of the microbial communities involved are poorly understood. The purpose of the present study was to determine the dynamics of short-chain fatty acids and the structure of bacterial communities during residue decomposition in a rice field soil. The soil was anaerobically incubated with the incorporation of rice root or straw residues for 90 days at three temperatures (15, 30, and 45°C). The dynamics of fatty acid intermediates showed an initial cumulative phase followed by a rapid consumption phase and a low-concentration quasi-steady state. Correspondingly, the bacterial populations displayed distinct successions during residue decomposition. Temperature showed a strong effect on the dynamics of bacterial populations. Members of Clostridium (clusters I and III) were most dominant in the incubations, particularly in the early successions. Bacteroidetes and Chlorobi were abundant in the later successions at 15 and 30°C, while Acidobacteria were selected at 45°C. We suggest that the early successional groups are responsible for the decomposition of the easily degradable fraction of residues, while the late successional groups become more important in decomposing the less-degradable or resistant fraction of plant residues. The bacterial succession probably is related to resource availability during residue decomposition. The fast-growing organisms are favored at the beginning, while the slow-growing bacteria are better adapted in the later stages, when substrate availability is limiting.

Syntrophic interaction occurs during anaerobic fermentation of organic substances forming methane as the final product. H2 and formate are known to serve as the electron carriers in this process. Recently, it has been shown that direct interspecies electron transfer (DIET) occurs for syntrophic CH4 production from ethanol and acetate. Here, we constructed paddy soil enrichments to determine the involvement of DIET in syntrophic butyrate oxidation and CH4 production. The results showed that CH4 production was significantly accelerated in the presence of nanoFe3 O4 in all continuous transfers. This acceleration increased with the increase of nanoFe3 O4 concentration but was dismissed when Fe3 O4 was coated with silica that insulated the mineral from electrical conduction. NanoFe3 O4 particles were found closely attached to the cell surfaces of different morphology, thus bridging cell connections. Molecular approaches, including DNA-based stable isotope probing, revealed that the bacterial Syntrophomonadaceae and Geobacteraceae, and the archaeal Methanosarcinaceae, Methanocellales and Methanobacteriales, were involved in the syntrophic butyrate oxidation and CH4 production. Among them, the growth of Geobacteraceae strictly relied on the presence of nanoFe3 O4 and its electrical conductivity in particular. Other organisms, except Methanobacteriales, were present in enrichments regardless of nanoFe3 O4 amendment. Collectively, our study demonstrated that the nanoFe3 O4 -facilitated DIET occurred in syntrophic CH4 production from butyrate, and Geobacter species played the key role in this process in the paddy soil enrichments.

Microbial diversity in Movile Cave (Romania) was studied using bacterial and archaeal 16S rRNA gene sequence and functional gene analyses, including ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/ oxygenase (RuBisCO), soxB (sulfate thioesterase/thiohydrolase) and amoA (ammonia monooxygenase). Sulfur oxidizers from both Gammaproteobacteria and Betaproteobacteria were detected in 16S rRNA, soxB and RuBisCO gene libraries. DNA-based stable-isotope probing analyses using 13 C-bicarbonate showed that Thiobacillus spp. were most active in assimilating CO 2 and also implied that ammonia and nitrite oxidizers were active during incubations. Nitrosomonas spp. were detected in both 16S rRNA and amoA gene libraries from the 'heavy' DNA and sequences related to nitriteoxidizing bacteria Nitrospira and Candidatus 'Nitrotoga' were also detected in the 'heavy' DNA, which suggests that ammonia/nitrite oxidation may be another major primary production process in this unique ecosystem. A significant number of sequences associated with known methylotrophs from the Betaproteobacteria were obtained, including Methylotenera, Methylophilus and Methylovorus, supporting the view that cycling of one-carbon compounds may be an important process within Movile Cave. Other sequences detected in the bacterial 16S rRNA clone library included Verrucomicrobia, Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, alphaproteobacterial Rhodobacterales and gammaproteobacterial Xanthomonadales. Archaeal 16S rRNA sequences retrieved were restricted within two groups, namely the Deep-sea Hydrothermal Vent Euryarchaeota group and the Miscellaneous Crenarchaeotic group. No sequences related to known sulfur-oxidizing archaea, ammonia-oxidizing archaea, methanogens or anaerobic methane-oxidizing archaea were detected in this clone library. The results provided molecular biological evidence to support the hypothesis that Movile Cave is driven by chemolithoautotrophy, mainly through sulfur oxidation by sulfur-oxidizing bacteria and reveal that ammonia-and nitrite-oxidizing bacteria may also be major primary producers in Movile Cave.