Journal
ECOLOGY
Volume 97, Issue 6, Pages 1543-1554Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1890/15-1160.1
Keywords
alpine tundra; plant-microbe interactions; soil bacterial communities; N-deposition; nutrients; 16S rRNA
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Funding
- China Scholarship Council (CSC)
- National Science Foundation [DEB-1258160]
- National Science Foundation graduate research fellowship [DGE 1144083]
- Niwot Ridge Long Term Ecological Research program [DEB 1027341]
- Division Of Environmental Biology
- Direct For Biological Sciences [1027341] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Bacterial community composition and diversity was studied in alpine tundra soils across a plant species and moisture gradient in 20 yr-old experimental plots with four nutrient addition regimes (control, nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) or both nutrients). Different bacterial communities inhabited different alpine meadows, reflecting differences in moisture, nutrients and plant species. Bacterial community alpha-diversity metrics were strongly correlated with plant richness and the production of forbs. After meadow type, N addition proved the strongest determinant of bacterial community structure. Structural Equation Modeling demonstrated that tundra bacterial community responses to N addition occur via changes in plant community composition and soil pH resulting from N inputs, thus disentangling the influence of direct (resource availability) vs. indirect (changes in plant community structure and soil pH) N effects that have remained unexplored in past work examining bacterial responses to long-term N inputs in these vulnerable environments. Across meadow types, the relative influence of these indirect N effects on bacterial community structure varied. In explicitly evaluating the relative importance of direct and indirect effects of long-term N addition on bacterial communities, this study provides new mechanistic understandings of the interaction between plant and microbial community responses to N inputs amidst environmental change.
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