soils Targeted loci environmental. soil metagenome

Soil archaea, bacteria, and fungi play key roles in terrestrial ecosystem functions. However, little is known about their difference in biogeographic patterns and drivers. Here we investigated the influence of environmental parameters and spatial distance on soil archaeal, bacterial, and fungal communities from 110 sites in natural forest along a vegetation gradient ranging from tropical seasonal forest (V1)，subtropical broad-leaved evergreen forest (V2), temperate deciduous broad-leaved forest (V3), to temperate mixed coniferous-broadleaf forest (V4). The alpha-diversity pattern varied with archaeal, bacterial, and fungal communities, suggesting the differentiation of biogeographic patterns for these kingdoms. Bacterial and fungal alpha-diversity was strongly associated with acid oxalate soluble Fe (Feo)/free Fe oxides (Fed) ratio and dissolved organic carbon (DOC), respectively. However, archaeal alpha-diversity was only weakly influenced by total nitrogen (TN). Bacterial and fungal communities exhibited stronger geographic distance-decay relationship than archaeal communities. Mental test results indicate that the bacterial community was dominantly controlled by geographic distance, whereas the fungal community was dominantly controlled by local edaphic factors. These results implied that the archaeal, bacterial, and fungal biogeography was driven by various mechanisms. In addition, the bipartite network between major community compositions and environmental factors approved the differentiation of controlling environmental factors among archaeal, bacterial and fungal community. Together, these results represent an important step in understanding the different regulations of soil archaeal, bacterial, and fungal biogeography at the continental scale.