Higher spatial than seasonal beta diversity of soil protists along elevation gradients
Details
Serval ID
serval:BIB_5AE1FBB4750E
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Higher spatial than seasonal beta diversity of soil protists along elevation gradients
Journal
Frontiers of Biogeography
ISSN
1948-6596
Publication state
Published
Issued date
08/08/2024
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
17
Number
e132637
Language
english
Abstract
Biodiversity patterns along elevation gradients have long been studied for plants and animals, but only quite recently for soil microorganisms, especially protists (eukaryotes excluding plants, animals, and fungi). Microorganisms have shorter generation times than macroorganisms, and their abundance, diversity, and community structure are known to vary rapidly in response to abiotic and biotic factors. If microbial diversity varies more seasonally than spatially, a single sampling campaign along an elevation gradient, with contrasted phenologies, could introduce bias into biodiversity studies comparing multiple elevation gradients across different seasons, habitats, regions or latitudes. To address this question, we investigated the relative magnitude of spatial versus temporal diversity (alpha diversity) and community turnover (beta diversity) of soil protist communities along elevation gradients in two distant European mountain ranges. We collected soil samples in forests and grasslands below the treeline along five elevation gradients in two consecutive seasons (spring and summer) in the Spanish Sierra Nevada and the Swiss Alps, covering two distinct biogeographic regions. Using general eukaryotic primers and amplicon sequencing of soil environmental DNA, we decomposed total protist amplicon sequence variants diversity into local alpha- and beta diversity components and identified climatic and edaphic predictors of biodiversity patterns using redundancy analyses. Soil protist communities varied spatially within and among transects but temporal turnover was comparatively low. The best edaphic predictors of community variations were the same in spring and summer, but their explanatory power differed among seasons. The dominant spatial component of beta diversity suggests that patterns of soil protist communities along elevation gradients are more strongly driven by spatial heterogeneity than inter-seasonal turnover. Thus, in temperate climates, our results suggest that sampling only once between the end of spring and late summer across an elevation gradient does not introduce bias due to phenological differences when comparing beta diversity across multiple gradients.
Keywords
beta diversity, DNA metabarcoding, elevation gradients, microbial community, protists, Spanish Sierra Nevada, sampling strategy, soil biodiversity, spatio-temporal dynamics, Swiss Alps
Open Access
Yes
Create date
12/08/2024 14:29
Last modification date
21/08/2024 7:23