Data from: Life in leaf litter: novel insights into community dynamics of bacteria and fungi during litter decomposition

Microorganisms play a crucial role in the biological decomposition of plant litter in terrestrial ecosystems. Due to the permanently changing litter quality during decomposition, studies of both fungi and bacteria at a fine taxonomic resolution are required during the whole process. Here we investigated microbial community succession in decomposing leaf litter of temperate beech forest using pyrotag sequencing of the bacterial 16S and the fungal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) rRNA genes. Our results reveal that both communities underwent rapid changes. Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria and Bacteroidetes dominated over the entire study period, but their taxonomic composition and abundances changed markedly among sampling dates. The fungal community also changed dynamically as decomposition progressed, with ascomycete fungi being increasingly replaced by basidiomycetes. We found a consistent and highly significant correlation between bacterial richness and fungal richness (R = 0.76, P < 0.001) and community structure (RMantel = 0.85, P < 0.001), providing evidence of coupled dynamics in the fungal and bacterial communities. A network analysis highlighted nonrandom co-occurrences among bacterial and fungal taxa as well as a shift in the cross-kingdom co-occurrence pattern of their communities from the early to the later stages of decomposition. During this process, macronutrients, micronutrients, C:N ratio and pH were significantly correlated with the fungal and bacterial communities, while bacterial richness positively correlated with three hydrolytic enzymes important for C, N and P acquisition. Overall, we provide evidence that the complex litter decay is the result of a dynamic cross-kingdom functional succession.微生物在陆地生态系统的植物枯落物生物降解过程中发挥着至关重要的作用。由于分解进程中枯落物品质持续动态变化，因此在整个分解周期内，需要以精细分类学分辨率对真菌与细菌开展同步研究。本研究以温带山毛榉林分解中的叶片枯落物为研究对象，通过对细菌16S核糖体RNA（16S rRNA）基因以及真菌内部转录间隔区（ITS）rRNA基因进行焦磷酸标签测序（pyrotag sequencing），探究了其中的微生物群落演替过程。研究结果显示，两类群落均经历了快速的动态变化：变形菌门（Proteobacteria）、放线菌门（Actinobacteria）与拟杆菌门（Bacteroidetes）在整个研究周期内占据优势地位，但其分类学组成与相对丰度在不同采样时间点均发生显著改变。真菌群落同样随分解进程呈现动态变化，子囊菌门（Ascomycota）真菌的相对占比逐渐被担子菌门（Basidiomycota）真菌所取代。本研究发现，细菌群落丰富度与真菌群落丰富度（R=0.76，P<0.001）以及群落结构（曼特尔统计量RMantel=0.85，P<0.001）之间存在一致且高度显著的相关关系，为真菌与细菌群落的耦合动态提供了直接证据。网络分析结果进一步揭示了细菌与真菌类群间存在非随机的共现关系，且其群落的跨域共现模式从分解早期到后期发生了显著转变。在此过程中，大量元素、微量元素、碳氮比（C:N）以及pH值均与真菌和细菌群落存在显著相关；细菌群落丰富度还与三种参与碳、氮、磷元素获取的水解酶呈显著正相关。综上，本研究证实复杂的枯落物分解过程是动态跨域功能群落演替的结果。