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Relating belowground microbial composition to the taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional trait distributions of trees in a tropical forest
Author(s) -
Barberán Albert,
McGuire Krista L.,
Wolf Jeffrey A.,
Jones F. Andrew,
Wright Stuart Joseph,
Turner Benjamin L.,
Essene Adam,
Hubbell Stephen P.,
Faircloth Brant C.,
Fierer Noah
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
ecology letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.852
H-Index - 265
eISSN - 1461-0248
pISSN - 1461-023X
DOI - 10.1111/ele.12536
Subject(s) - biology , ecology , plant community , microbial population biology , trait , phylogenetic tree , community , ecological succession , habitat , bacteria , biochemistry , genetics , computer science , gene , programming language
Abstract The complexities of the relationships between plant and soil microbial communities remain unresolved. We determined the associations between plant aboveground and belowground (root) distributions and the communities of soil fungi and bacteria found across a diverse tropical forest plot. Soil microbial community composition was correlated with the taxonomic and phylogenetic structure of the aboveground plant assemblages even after controlling for differences in soil characteristics, but these relationships were stronger for fungi than for bacteria. In contrast to expectations, the species composition of roots in our soil core samples was a poor predictor of microbial community composition perhaps due to the patchy, ephemeral, and highly overlapping nature of fine root distributions. Our ability to predict soil microbial composition was not improved by incorporating information on plant functional traits suggesting that the most commonly measured plant traits are not particularly useful for predicting the plot‐level variability in belowground microbial communities.