Habitat heterogeneity induced by pyrogenic organic matter in wildfire-perturbed soils mediates bacterial community assembly processes

Although pyrogenic organic matter (PyOM) generated during wildfires plays a critical role in post-fire ecosystem recovery, the specific mechanisms by which PyOM controls soil microbial community assembly after wildfire perturbation remain largely uncharacterized. Herein we characterized the effect o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The ISME Journal 2021-07, Vol.15 (7), p.1943-1955
Main Authors: Zhang, Lujun, Ma, Bin, Tang, Caixian, Yu, Haodan, Lv, Xiaofei, Mazza Rodrigues, Jorge L., Dahlgren, Randy A., Xu, Jianming
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
704/158/2454
704/158/855
Assembly
Bacteria
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Burnt ground
Community structure
Dispersal
Divergence
Ecology
Ecosystem recovery
Evolutionary Biology
Habitat preferences
Heterogeneity
Life Sciences
Microbial activity
Microbial Ecology
Microbial Genetics and Genomics
Microbiology
Microbiota
Microhabitats
Microorganisms
Niches
Organic matter
Organic soils
Perturbation
pH effects
Phylogenetics
Phylogeny
Soil
Soil Microbiology
Soil microorganisms
Soils
Wildfires
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Summary:Although pyrogenic organic matter (PyOM) generated during wildfires plays a critical role in post-fire ecosystem recovery, the specific mechanisms by which PyOM controls soil microbial community assembly after wildfire perturbation remain largely uncharacterized. Herein we characterized the effect of PyOM on soil bacterial communities at two independent wildfire-perturbed forest sites. We observed that α-diversity of bacterial communities was the highest in wildfire-perturbed soils and that bacterial communities gradually changed along a sequence of unburnt soil → burnt soil → PyOM. The microbial communities reconstructed from unburnt soil and PyOM resembled the real bacterial communities in wildfire-perturbed soils in their α-diversity and community structure. Bacterial specialists in PyOM and soils clustered in phylogenetic coherent lineages with intra-lineage pH-niche conservatism and inter-lineage pH-niche divergence. Our results suggest that PyOM mediates bacterial community assembly in wildfire-perturbed soils by a combination of environmental selection and dispersal of phylogenetic coherent specialists with habitat preference in the heterogeneous microhabitats of burnt soils with distinct PyOM patches.
ISSN:1751-7362
1751-7370
DOI:10.1038/s41396-021-00896-z