A long-term field experiment of soil transplantation demonstrating the role of contemporary geographic separation in shaping soil microbial community structure.

ABSTRACT: The spatial patterns of microbial communities are largely determined by the combined effects of historical contingencies and contemporary environmental disturbances, but their relative importance remains poorly understood. Empirical biogeographic data currently available are mostly based on the traditional method of observational survey, which typically involves comparing indigenous microbial communities across spatial scales. Here, we report a long-term soil transplantation experiment, whereby the same two soils (red Acrisol and purple Cambisol from Yingtan) were placed into two geographic locations of ∼1000 km apart (i.e., Yingtan in the mid-subtropical region and Fengqiu in warm-temperate region; both located in China). Twenty years after the transplantation, the resulting soil microbia

SUBMITTER: Sun B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3997323 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature