Strong partitioning of soil bacterial community composition and co-occurrence networks along a small-scale elevational gradient on Zijin Mountain

Highlights

• Soil bacterial community composition strongly differed along a short elevational gradient.

• Soil pH and elevation were significantly correlated with soil bacterial community composition.

• Degree scores, betweenness centralities, and composition of network hubs differed among elevations.

Abstract

The elevational distributions of bacterial communities in natural mountain forests, especially along large elevational gradients, have been studied for many years. However, the distributional patterns that underlie variations in soil bacterial communities along small-scale elevational gradients in urban ecosystems are not yet well understood. Using Illumina MiSeq DNA sequencing, we surveyed soil bacterial communities at three elevations on Zijin Mountain in Nanjing City: the hilltop (300 m a.s.l.), the hillside (150 m a.s.l.), and the foot of the hill (0 m a.s.l.). The results showed that edaphic properties differed significantly with elevation. Bacterial community composition, rather than alpha diversity, strongly differed among the three elevations (Adonis: R² = 0.12, P<0.01). Adonis and DistLM analyses demonstrated that bacterial community composition was highly correlated with soil pH, elevation, total nitrogen (TN), and dissolved organic carbon (DOC). The degree scores, betweenness centralities, and composition of keystone species were distinct among the elevations. These results demonstrate strong elevational partitioning in the distributions of soil bacterial communities along the gradient on Zijin Mountain. Soil pH and elevation together drove the small-scale elevational distribution of soil bacterial communities. This study broadens our understanding of distribution patterns and biotic co-occurrence associations of soil bacterial communities from large elevational gradients to short elevational gradients.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Elevational distribution / Soil pH / Bacterial community composition / Co-occurrence network

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Kunkun Fan, Hongfei Wang, Xingjia Xiang, Kaoping Zhang, Yingying Ni, Dan He, Ruibo Sun, and Yuntao Li for assistance in soil sampling and laboratory analyses. This work was funded by the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB15010101), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41907039), and the China Biodiversity Observation Networks (Sino BON). The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Electronic supplementary material

Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.1007/s42832-021-0122-2 and is accessible for authorized users.

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