Envrionmental data for: Invasive earthworms shift soil microbial community structure in northern North American forest ecosystems

Invasive earthworms colonise ecosystems around the globe. Compared to other species invasions, earthworm invasions have received little attention. Previous studies indicated their tremendous effects on resident soil biota representing a major part of the terrestrial biodiversity. We investigated effects of earthworm invasion on soil microbial communities in three forests in North America by conducting DNA-sequencing of soil bacteria, fungi, and protists in two soil depths. Our study shows that microbial diversity was lower in highly invaded forest areas. While bacterial diversity was strongly affected compared to fungi and protists, fungal community composition and family dominance were strongly affected compared to bacteria and protists. We found most species specialised on invasion in fungi, mainly represented by saprotrophs. Comparably, few protist species, mostly bacterivorous, were specialised on invasion. As one of the first observational studies, we investigated earthworm invasion on three kingdoms showing distinct taxa- and trophic level-specific responses to earthworm invasion.

入侵性蚯蚓已成功定殖于全球范围内的各类生态系统。相较于其他物种入侵事件，蚯蚓入侵却鲜有受到学界关注。既往研究表明，蚯蚓入侵会对本土土壤生物群落——陆地生物多样性的重要组成部分——产生极为显著的影响。本研究以北美三处森林为研究对象，通过对两层土壤中的细菌、真菌及原生生物（protists）开展DNA测序，探究了蚯蚓入侵对土壤微生物群落的影响。研究结果显示，高入侵程度森林区域内的微生物多样性水平显著更低。相较于真菌与原生生物，细菌多样性受蚯蚓入侵的影响更为显著；而相较于细菌与原生生物，真菌群落组成及科水平优势度则受到更强的扰动。我们发现，真菌类群中多数物种为入侵专性类群，其中以腐生生物（saprotrophs）为主。与之相对，仅有少量原生生物物种为入侵专性类群，且此类物种大多为食细菌型原生生物。本研究作为首批相关观测研究之一，探究了蚯蚓入侵对三个生物界的影响，结果显示不同类群及营养级的生物对蚯蚓入侵均呈现出特异性响应。