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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Terrestrial Microbiology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2024.1522319

Assembly mechanisms, not species pool, shape β-diversity of soil methanotrophic communities in steppes of China

Provisionally accepted
Yongping Kou Yongping Kou 1Zhe Feng Zhe Feng 1Huan Li Huan Li 2Yanjiao Liu Yanjiao Liu 3Lin Xu Lin Xu 4*
  • 1 Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
  • 2 Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, Gansu Province, China
  • 3 Tianjin University, Tianjin, Tianjin, China
  • 4 Sichuan Agricultural University, Ya'an, China

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

    One of the central aims in ecology is elucidating the mechanisms that shape community diversity. While biodiversity patterns across geographical gradients are often attributed both to local assembly processes and regional species pools, the distinct roles of these factors in shaping soil aerobic methanotrophic diversity remain underexplored. This study focuses on comparing soil methanotrophic communities across three distinct plateaus in China: the Loess, the Qinghai-Tibetan and the Inner Mongolian, each of which encompasses three steppe habitats (desert, meadow and typical). Our findings reveal that pmoA beta (β)-diversity followed a distance-decay pattern, which declined with geographical distance at different rates depending on the steppe type and area, potentially due to diverse mechanisms of community assembly. Moreover, a decoupling between β-diversity and gamma-diversity observed, suggesting that local community assembly mechanisms primarily account for variations in β-diversity patterns. Furthermore, the relative significance of these assembly processes (e.g., dispersal limitation, drift, environmental filtering, and biotic interactions) varies according to spatial scales and steppe types. Notably, the differential environmental conditions (such as soil pH, yearly average temperature, and precipitation) across scales and steppe habitats primarily modulate the intensity of these assembly processes, thereby influencing β-diversity. In summary, our study emphasizes the crucial role of local community assembly in changing soil methanotrophic β-diversity’s geographical patterns, highlighting the significance of a nuanced understanding of these processes for effective conservation and management strategies.

    Keywords: species pool, community assembly, deterministic processes, stochastic processes, soil methanotrophic communities

    Received: 05 Nov 2024; Accepted: 23 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Kou, Feng, Li, Liu and Xu. 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: Lin Xu, Sichuan Agricultural University, Ya'an, China

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