Power law in species–area relationship overestimates bacterial diversity in grassland soils at larger scales

作者：Biao Zhang, Kai Xue, Wenjing Liu, Shutong Zhou, Shipeng Nie, Yichao Rui, Tang Li, Zhe Pang, Linfeng Li, Junfu Dong, Cong Xu, Lili Jiang, Shaopeng Wang, Yanbin Hao, Xiaoyong Cui, Yanfen Wang · 发表于：Global Ecology and Biogeography · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.1111/geb.13825 · 被引用次数：6 · 研究领域：Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics、Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies、Rangeland and Wildlife Management

Abstract Aim Species–area relationships (SAR) are widely utilized for estimating the species richness and its spatial turnover across various scales. Despite the prevalent characterization of SAR using the power law in many microbial community studies, its efficacy remains unvalidated. This study aims to characterize the microbial SAR and its mechanisms in alpine grassland soils on the Qinghai‐Tibet Plateau (QTP). Location Qinghai‐Tibet Plateau, China. Time Period August 2014. Major Taxa Studied Soil bacteria. Methods Soil samples were collected from five alpine grassland sites on the QTP. Employing a nested sampling strategy at each site, soil samples were collected in plot sizes ranging from 0.5 × 0.5 m 2 to 2048 × 2048 m 2 . Soil bacterial communities were analysed by sequencing 16S ribosomal RNA gene amplicons using an Illumina MiSeq. Results The bacterial SAR exhibited a logarithmic power law ( R 2 : 0.952–0.999), outperforming the power law ( R 2 : 0.701–0.852). Consequently, the most widely adopted power law led to an overestimation of species richness by up to 15.07% in areas >256 × 256 m 2 , and the regional maximum theoretical richness based on Chao1 by up to 9.88%. Mechanistically, the passive sampling hypothesis was refuted through the rarefied species richness analysis, and the disproportionate effect hypothesis was rejected based on analyses of the effective numbers of species number conversions for the probability of interspecific encounters ( S PIE ). Notab...