The Biogeographic Pattern of Microbial Functional Genes along an Altitudinal Gradient of the Tibetan Pasture.

ABSTRACT: As the highest place of the world, the Tibetan plateau is a fragile ecosystem. Given the importance of microbial communities in driving soil nutrient cycling, it is of interest to document the microbial biogeographic pattern here. We adopted a microarray-based tool named GeoChip 4.0 to investigate grassland microbial functional genes along an elevation gradient from 3200 to 3800 m above sea level open to free grazing by local herdsmen and wild animals. Interestingly, microbial functional diversities increase with elevation, so does the relative abundances of genes associated with carbon degradation, nitrogen cycling, methane production, cold shock and oxygen limitation. The range of Shannon diversities (10.27-10.58) showed considerably smaller variation than what was previously observed at

SUBMITTER: Qi Q 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5468456 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature