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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Terrestrial Microbiology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2024.1444260
This article is part of the Research Topic Monitoring, Modeling, and Mitigation in Terrestrial Ecosystems: Microbial Response to Climate Change View all articles

Elevational distribution patterns and drivers factors of fungal community diversity at different soil depths in the Abies georgei var. smithii forests on Sygera Mountains, southeastern Tibet, China

Provisionally accepted
Bo Zhang Bo Zhang 1Sijie Zhu Sijie Zhu 1Jiangrong Li Jiangrong Li 2*Fangwei Fu Fangwei Fu 1Liangna Guo Liangna Guo 1Jieting Li Jieting Li 1Yibo Zhang Yibo Zhang 1Yuzhuo Liu Yuzhuo Liu 1Ganggang Chen Ganggang Chen 1Gengxin Zhang Gengxin Zhang 3
  • 1 Tibet Agriculture and Animal Husbandry College, Linzhi, China
  • 2 Tibet University, Lhasa, China
  • 3 Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing, Beijing Municipality, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Soil fungal communities play a crucial role in maintaining the ecological functions of alpine forest soil ecosystems. However, it is currently unclear how the distribution patterns of fungal communities in different soil layers of alpine forests will change along the elevational gradients. Therefore, Illumina MiSeq sequencing technology was employed to investigate fungal communities in three soil layers (0–10, 10–20, and 20–30 cm) along an elevational gradient (3500 m to 4300 m) at Sygera Mountains, located in Bayi District, Nyingchi City, Tibet. The results indicated that: 1) Soil depth had a greater impact on fungal diversity than elevation, demonstrating a significant reduction in fungal diversity with increased soil depth but showing no significant difference with elevation changes in all soil layers. Within the 0–10 cm soil layer, both Basidiomycota and Ascomycota co-dominate the microbial community. However, as the soil depth increases to 10–20 and 20–30 cm soil layers, the Basidiomycota predominantly dominates.2) Deterministic processes were dominant in the assembly mechanism of the 0–10 cm fungal community and remained unchanged with increasing elevation. By contrast, the assembly mechanisms of the 10–20 and 20–30 cm fungal communities shifted from deterministic to stochastic processes as elevation increased. 3) The network complexity of the 0–10 cm fungal community gradually increased with elevation, while that of the 10–20 and 20–30 cm fungal communities exhibited a decreasing trend. Compared to the 0–10 cm soil layer, more changes in the relative abundance of fungal biomarkers occurred in the 10–20 and 20–30 cm soil layers, indicating that the fungal communities at these depths are more sensitive to climate changes.Among the key factors driving these alterations, soil temperature and moisture soil water content stood out as pivotal in shaping the assembly mechanisms and network complexity of fungal communities. This study contributes to the understanding of soil fungal community patterns and drivers along elevational gradients in alpine ecosystems and provides important scientific evidence for predicting the functional responses of soil microbial ecosystems in alpine forests.

    Keywords: elevation, Fungi, Alpine forest, Fungal diversity, Co-occurrence network

    Received: 05 Jun 2024; Accepted: 22 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Zhang, Zhu, Li, Fu, Guo, Li, Zhang, Liu, Chen and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Jiangrong Li, Tibet University, Lhasa, China

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