Precipitation shapes communities of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in Tibetan alpine steppe

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Zhang, Jing
Wang, Fang
Che, Rongxiao
Wang, Ping
Liu, Hanke
Ji, Baoming
Cui, Xiaoyong
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2016
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Abstract

Tibetan Plateau is one of the largest and most unique habitats for organisms including arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF). However, it remains unclear how AMF communities respond to key environmental changes in this harsh environment. To test if precipitation could be a driving force in shaping AMF community structures at regional scale, we examined AMF communities associated with dominant plant species along a precipitation gradient in Tibetan alpine steppe. Rhizosphere soils were collected from five sites with annual precipitation decreasing from 400 to 50 mm. A total of 31 AMF operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were identified. AMF community composition varied significantly among sites, whereas AMF community composition did not vary among plant species. Path analysis revealed that precipitation directly affected AMF hyphal length density, and indirectly influenced AMF species richness likely through the mediation of plant coverage. Our results suggested that water availability could drive the changes of AMF communities at regional scale. Given the important roles AMF could play in the dynamics of plant communities, exploring the changes of AMF communities along key environmental gradients would help us better predict the ecosystem level responses of the Tibetan vegetation to future climate change.

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Scientific Reports

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6

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1

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© The Author(s) 2016. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

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Terrestrial ecology

Environmental sciences

Science & Technology

Multidisciplinary Sciences

Science & Technology - Other Topics

PLANT COMPETITION

ORGANIC-CARBON

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Zhang, J; Wang, F; Che, R; Wang, P; Liu, H; Ji, B; Cui, X, Precipitation shapes communities of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in Tibetan alpine steppe, Scientific Reports, 2016, 6 (1)

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