Aboveground-belowground biodiversity linkages differ in early and late successional temperate forests.

ABSTRACT: Understanding ecological linkages between above- and below-ground biota is critical for deepening our knowledge on the maintenance and stability of ecosystem processes. Nevertheless, direct comparisons of plant-microbe diversity at the community level remain scarce due to the knowledge gap between microbial ecology and plant ecology. We compared the α- and β- diversities of plant and soil bacterial communities in two temperate forests that represented early and late successional stages. We documented different patterns of aboveground-belowground diversity relationships in these forests. We observed no linkage between plant and bacterial α-diversity in the early successional forest, and even a negative correlation in the late successional forest, indicating that high bacterial α-diversity i

SUBMITTER: Li H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4505317 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature