Diversity coupling of soil microbes and plants in large-scale forest ecosystems. link aboveground and belowground biodiversity

Belowground soil microbial and aboveground plant communities are cross-linked and form a systematic entity to maintain forest ecosystem functions. They are assumed tightly associated in diversity due to their intimate functional interdependence, yet how microbial diversity covary with plant diversity remained elusive. Through a paralleled survey on both belowground soil microbial, and aboveground tree and herb communities by establishing three hundred 400-m2 quadrats from tropical rainforest to boreal forest along a latitudinal gradient from N18°15′ to N53°18′, we found that microbial diversity unexpectedly couples with herb rather than trees, and the former two respond more similarly to environmental conditions. These findings revealed differential biogeographic patterns of small organisms from larger ones, and proposed new perspective into interpretation of above-belowground interactions in forest ecosystems.