Diversity of Cellular Slime Molds (Dictyostelids) in the Fanjing Mountain Nature Reserve and Geographical Distribution Comparisons with Other Representative Nature Reserves in Different Climate Zones of China

作者：Zhaojuan Zhang, Meng Li, Shufei Zhang, Yue Qin, Jing Zhao, Yu Li, Steven L. Stephenson, Junzhi Qiu, Pu Liu · 发表于：Microorganisms · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.3390/microorganisms12061061 · 被引用次数：5 · 研究领域：Protist diversity and phylogeny、Microbial Community Ecology and Physiology、Biocrusts and Microbial Ecology

Protected areas are widely considered an essential strategy for biodiversity conservation. Dictyostelids are unique protists known to have important ecological functions in promoting soil and plant health through their top-down regulation of ecosystem processes, such as decomposition, that involve bacterial populations. But the relationship between dictyostelid diversity within protected areas remains poorly understood, especially on a large scale. Herein, we report data on the distribution of dictyostelids, identified with ITS + SSU rRNA molecular and morphology-based taxonomy, from soil samples collected in the Fanjing Mountain protected area of Guizhou Province, Southwest China. We compared the biodiversity data of dictyostelids in Fanjing Mountain with similar data from previously sampled sites in four other protected areas, including Changbai Mountain (CB), Gushan Mountain (GS), Baiyun Mountain (BY), and Qinghai–Tibet Plateau (QT) in China. We identified four species of dictyostelids belonging to three genera (Dictyostelium, Heterostelium, and Polysphondylium) and herein provide information on the taxonomy of these species. Two species (Heterostelium pallidum and Dictyostelium purpureum) are common and widely distributed throughout the world, but one species (Polysphondylium fuscans) was new to China. Our data indicate that there is no distinguishable significant correlation between the dictyostelid species studied and environmental factors. Overall, the similarity index...