Soil Biogeochemical Cycle Couplings Inferred from a Function-Taxon Network

Bin Ma; Erinne Stirling; Yuanhui Liu; Kankan Zhao; Jizhong Zhou; Brajesh K Singh; Caixian Tang; Randy A Dahlgren; Jianming Xu

doi:10.34133/2021/7102769

Soil Biogeochemical Cycle Couplings Inferred from a Function-Taxon Network

Research (Wash D C). 2021 Mar 10:2021:7102769. doi: 10.34133/2021/7102769. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Bin Ma^{1

2

3}, Erinne Stirling^{1

2

4}, Yuanhui Liu^{1

2}, Kankan Zhao^{1

2}, Jizhong Zhou⁵, Brajesh K Singh⁶, Caixian Tang⁷, Randy A Dahlgren⁸, Jianming Xu^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Soil and Water Resources and Environmental Science, College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China.
² Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Agricultural Resources and Environment, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China.
³ Hangzhou Global Scientific and Technological Innovation Center, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China.
⁴ Acid Sulfate Soils Centre, School of Biological Sciences, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA 5005, Australia.
⁵ Institute for Environmental Genomics, Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, and School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Sciences, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA.
⁶ Global Centre for Land-Based Innovation, Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW 2750, Australia.
⁷ Department of Animal, Plant and Soil Sciences, La Trobe University, Melbourne Campus, Bundoora, VIC 3086, Australia.
⁸ Department of Land, Air and Water Resources, University of California, Davis, 95616 CA, USA.

Abstract

Soil biogeochemical cycles and their interconnections play a critical role in regulating functions and services of environmental systems. However, the coupling of soil biogeochemical processes with their mediating microbes remains poorly understood. Here, we identified key microbial taxa regulating soil biogeochemical processes by exploring biomarker genes and taxa of contigs assembled from metagenomes of forest soils collected along a latitudinal transect (18° N to 48° N) in eastern China. Among environmental and soil factors, soil pH was a sensitive indicator for functional gene composition and diversity. A function-taxon bipartite network inferred from metagenomic contigs identified the microbial taxa regulating coupled biogeochemical cycles between carbon and phosphorus, nitrogen and sulfur, and nitrogen and iron. Our results provide novel evidence for the coupling of soil biogeochemical cycles, identify key regulating microbes, and demonstrate the efficacy of a new approach to investigate the processes and microbial taxa regulating soil ecosystem functions.