Data from: Contrasting microbial biogeographical patterns between anthropogenic subalpine grasslands and natural alpine grasslands

The effect of plant species composition on soil microbial communities was
studied at the multiregional level. We compared the soil microbial
communities of alpine natural grasslands dominated by Carex curvula and
anthropogenic subalpine pastures dominated by Nardus stricta. We conducted
paired sampling across the Carpathians and the Alps and used Illumina
sequencing to reveal the molecular diversity of soil microbes. We found
that bacterial and fungal communities exhibited contrasting regional
distributions and that the distribution in each grassland is well
discriminated. Beta diversity of microbial communities was much higher in
C. curvula grasslands due to a marked regional effect. The composition of
grassland-type core microbiomes suggest that C. curvula, and N. stricta to
a lesser extent, tend to select a cohort of microbes related to
antibiosis/exclusion, pathogenesis and endophytism. We discuss these
findings in light of the postglacial history of the studied grasslands,
the habitat connectivity and the disturbance regimes. Human-induced
disturbance in the subalpine belt of European mountains has led to
homogeneous soil microbial communities at large biogeographical scales.
Our results confirm the overarching role of the dominant grassland plant
species in the distribution of microbial communities and highlight the
relevance of biogeographical history.