Intraspecies variation in a widely distributed tree species regulates the responses of soil microbiome to different temperature regimes

Cui Jing Zhang, Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo, John E. Drake, Peter B. Reich, Mark G. Tjoelker, David T. Tissue, Jun Tao Wang, Ji Zheng He, Brajesh K. Singh

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

8 Scopus citations

Abstract

Plant characteristics in different provenances within a single species may vary in response to climate change, which might alter soil microbial communities and ecosystem functions. We conducted a glasshouse experiment and grew seedlings of three provenances (temperate, subtropical and tropical origins) of a tree species (i.e., Eucalyptus tereticornis) at different growth temperatures (18, 21.5, 25, 28.5, 32 and 35.5°C) for 54 days. At the end of the experiment, bacterial and fungal community composition, diversity and abundance were characterized. Measured soil functions included surrogates of microbial respiration, enzyme activities and nutrient cycling. Using Permutation multivariate analysis of variance (PerMANOVA) and network analysis, we found that the identity of tree provenances regulated both structure and function of soil microbiomes. In some cases, tree provenances substantially affected the response of microbial communities to the temperature treatments. For example, we found significant interactions of temperature and tree provenance on bacterial community and relative abundances of Chloroflexi and Zygomycota, and inorganic nitrogen. Microbial abundance was altered in response to increasing temperature, but was not affected by tree provenances. Our study provides novel evidence that even a small variation in biotic components (i.e., intraspecies tree variation) can significantly influence the response of soil microbial community composition and specific soil functions to global warming.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)167-178
Number of pages12
JournalEnvironmental microbiology reports
Volume10
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 2018

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was financially supported by internal grants from Global Centre for Land Based Innovation. B.K.S., P.B.R. and M.D.-B. acknowledge funding from Australian Research Council (DP170104634). We gratefully acknowledge the Next-Generation Sequencing Facility at Western Sydney University’s Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment for offering Illumina’s sequencing technology assistance. M.D-B. acknowledges support from the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions of the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme H2020-MSCA-IF-2016 under REA grant agreement No. 702057. We would like to thank Kaitao Lai, WSU, for developing the TaxaCloud platform which was used for bioinformatics analyses.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Society for Applied Microbiology and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

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