Local community assembly mechanisms shape soil bacterial β diversity patterns along a latitudinal gradient

Abstract

Biodiversity patterns across geographical gradients could result from regional species pool and local community assembly mechanisms. However, little has been done to separate the effects of local ecological mechanisms from variation in the regional species pools on bacterial diversity patterns. In this study, we compare assembly mechanisms of soil bacterial communities in 660 plots from 11 regions along a latitudinal gradient in eastern China with highly divergent species pools. Our results show that β diversity does not co-vary with γ diversity, and local community assembly mechanisms appear to explain variation in β diversity patterns after correcting for variation in regional species pools. The variation in environmental conditions along the latitudinal gradient accounts for the variation in β diversity through mediating the strength of heterogeneous selection. In conclusion, our study clearly illustrates the importance of local community assembly processes in shaping geographical patterns of soil bacterial β diversity.

How habitat heterogeneity shapes bacterial and protistan communities in temperate coastal areas near estuaries

“…4), indicating habitat heterogeneity also influenced microbial community patterns. The effects of habitat heterogeneity on microbial communities can be observed in two aspects: the regional species pool and species abundance distribution (Myers et al ., 2015; Zhang et al ., 2020). Huge differences in the local species pool between the LH and YLJ coastal areas were shown in the present study, as the shared ratio of bacteria and protists only accounted for 7.2% and 14.1% respectively (Fig.…”

“…To investigate the effects of local community assembly mechanisms, a novel index, β‐deviation, has been recently explored, which can recognize the dominant ecological processes shaping the β‐diversity pattern of microbial communities under the control of the regional species pool (Zhang et al ., 2020). The fraction of pairwise comparisons with β‐deviation <0 represented homogeneous selection or homogenizing dispersal as the dominant mechanism for local community assembly, whereas those with β‐deviation >0 were considered heterogeneous selection or dispersal limitation.…”

Latitudinal variation in the diversity and composition of various organisms associated with an exotic plant: the role of climate and plant invasion

“…The diversity and composition of biotic communities could be shaped by regional species pools or local abiotic (e.g. soil properties) and biotic heterogeneity (Buckley et al ., 2003; Tedersoo et al ., 2014; Horvitz et al ., 2017; Zhang et al ., 2020). In this study, species pool and richness CV explained a proportion of variance in the diversity and composition of plants and arthropods.…”

Plant evolution overwhelms geographical origin in shaping rhizosphere fungi across latitudes

“…The dissimilarity in root‐associated fungi among plants could be affected by both regional (such as the size of species pools, termed γ diversity) and local (such as heterogeneity in abiotic and biotic factors) processes (Zhang, Liu, et al, 2020). In this study, we found a positive relation between regional OTU richness and overall fungal dissimilarity only when the native and invasive plants were treated as separate groups.…”