Contrasting assembly mechanisms explain the biogeographic patterns of benthic bacterial and fungal communities on the Tibetan Plateau

Abstract

The Tibetan Plateau characterized by high altitude and low temperature, where a great number of lakes are located, is a hotspot of global biodiversity research. Both bacterial and fungal communities are vital participants of biogeochemical cycling in lake ecosystems. However, we know very little about the large-scale biogeographic patterns and the underlying assembly mechanisms of lake benthic microbial communities on the Tibetan Plateau. To investigate the biogeographic patterns and their underlying assembly mechanisms of benthic bacterial and fungal communities, we collected sediment samples from 11 lakes on the Tibetan Plateau (maximum geographic distance between lakes over 1100 km). Benthic community diversity and composition were determined using the high-throughput sequencing technique. Our results indicated that there were contrasting distance-decay relationships between benthic bacterial and fungal communities on a regional scale. Benthic bacterial communities showed a significant distance-decay relationship, whereas no significant relationship was observed for benthic fungal communities. Deterministic processes dominated the bacterial community assembly, whereas fungal community assembly was more stochastic. pH was a dominant factor in influencing the geographic distribution of benthic microbial communities. Co-occurrence network analysis revealed that bacterial communities showed higher complexity and greater stability than those of the fungal communities. Taken together, this study contributes to a novel understanding of the assembly mechanisms underlying the biogeographic distribution of plateau benthic bacterial and fungal communities at a large scale.

Keywords: Bacterial and fungal communities; Co-occurrence network; Deterministic processes; Distance-decay relationship; Lake sediments.