Journal
OIKOS
Volume 130, Issue 3, Pages 339-353Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/oik.07635
Keywords
16S amplicon sequencing; 16S rRNA; bipartite networks; microbial and plant diversity; peatlands; plant-microbe interactions
Categories
Funding
- ERA-net project within the European Union's 6th Framework Programme for Research funded though through the Dutch Research Council (NWO) [832.09.003]
- FORMAS [215-2008-1879]
- Swedish Research Council [3550141100]
- British Ecological Society [SR17/1427]
- Dutch Foundation for the Conservation of Irish bogs
- French National Research Agency [ANR-17-CE01-0007]
- Mohrmann fellowship
Ask authors/readers for more resources
The study found differences in plant and prokaryotic communities under different environmental and climatic conditions, with complex turnover in interactions between them. The turnover in interactions between plants and microorganisms is faster than the turnover in their respective communities.
Enviro-climatic changes are thought to be causing alterations in ecosystem processes through shifts in plant and microbial communities; however, how links between plant and microbial communities change with enviro-climatic change is likely to be less straightforward but may be fundamental for many ecological processes. To address this, we assessed the composition of the plant community and the prokaryotic community - using amplicon-based sequencing - of three European peatlands that were distinct in enviro-climatic conditions. Bipartite networks were used to construct site-specific plant-prokaryote co-occurrence networks. Our data show that between sites, plant and prokaryotic communities differ and that turnover in interactions between the communities was complex. Essentially, turnover in plant-microbial interactions is much faster than turnover in the respective communities. Our findings suggest that network rewiring does largely result from novel or different interactions between species common to all realised networks. Hence, turnover in network composition is largely driven by the establishment of new interactions between a core community of plants and microorganisms that are shared among all sites. Taken together our results indicate that plant-microbe associations are context dependent, and that changes in enviro-climatic conditions will likely lead to network rewiring. Integrating turnover in plant-microbe interactions into studies that assess the impact of enviro-climatic change on peatland ecosystems is essential to understand ecosystem dynamics and must be combined with studies on the impact of these changes on ecosystem processes.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available