Bacterial and fungal community composition and community-level physiological profiles in forest soils

Takashi Kunito; Shota Hibino; Hirotaka Sumi; Kozue Sawada; Ho-Dong Park; Kazunari Nagaoka

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0284817

Bacterial and fungal community composition and community-level physiological profiles in forest soils

PLoS One. 2023 Apr 20;18(4):e0284817. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0284817. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Takashi Kunito¹, Shota Hibino¹, Hirotaka Sumi², Kozue Sawada³, Ho-Dong Park¹, Kazunari Nagaoka⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Environmental Science, Faculty of Science, Shinshu University, Matsumoto, Japan.
² Department of Biological Chemistry, College of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Chubu University, Kasugai, Aichi, Japan.
³ Graduate School of Bioagricultural Sciences, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan.
⁴ Central Region Agricultural Research Center, NARO, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan.

Abstract

We characterized the potential functioning and composition of the bacterial and fungal communities in the O and A horizons of forest soils using community-level physiological profile (CLPP) based on BIOLOG analysis, and polymerase chain reaction-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (PCR-DGGE) analysis of 16S and 18S rDNA fragments, respectively. In addition, relationships between the potential functioning and the community composition in each horizon, and between the O and A horizons, were assessed using Procrustes analysis. For the bacterial and fungal communities, the CLPP and DGGE profile were clearly separated between the O and A horizons in a principal coordinate analysis except for the fungal CLPP. No significant links for CLPP and DGGE profile between the O and A horizons were observed for either bacterial or fungal communities, suggesting that different factors had considerable influence on the microbial communities between the O and A horizons. Significant couplings between bacterial and fungal DGGE profiles (p <0.05 for O horizon; p <0.01 for A horizon), and between bacterial and fungal CLPPs (p = 0.001 for O horizon; p <0.01 for A horizon), were observed in the O and A horizons, implying that common factors strongly influenced the bacterial and fungal communities in each horizon. Although a significant correlation was observed between bacterial community composition and the potential functioning in the A horizon (p <0.01), such a correlation was not observed for the fungal community in the A horizon, and for the bacterial and fungal communities in the O horizon. This finding suggested that potential functioning, which would reflect only rapidly growing microorganisms, was not strongly associated with the composition of the entire microbial community. Further studies are needed to unravel the factors shaping the composition and functioning of microbial communities in forest soils.

Copyright: © 2023 Kunito et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Bacteria / genetics
Forests
Mycobiome*
RNA, Ribosomal, 16S / genetics
Soil
Soil Microbiology

Substances

Soil
RNA, Ribosomal, 16S

Grants and funding

This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP19710008 to TK. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.