Community differentiation and assembly of soil nosZ-type denitrifiers across dominant plant communities in an alpine wetland of Qinghai Lake
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Background Nitrous oxide (N₂O) reduction mediated by nosZ -harboring microorganisms represents the terminal step of denitrification and an important biological sink for N₂O in wetland soils, yet how naturally occurring dominant plant communities are associated with the diversity, taxonomic differentiation, and assembly of nosZ -type communities in alpine wetlands remains poorly understood. Methods We investigated four dominant plant communities in wetlands surrounding Qinghai Lake on the northeastern Qinghai–Tibet Plateau, dominated by Blysmus sinocompressus (BS), Carex regescens (CR), Elymus nutans (EN), and Leymus secalinus (LS), and integrated nosZ -targeted amplicon sequencing with vegetation biomass, soil physicochemical properties, environmental-association analyses, and phylogeny-based null models to evaluate variation in community diversity, taxonomic composition, environmental correlates, and assembly processes. Results The four plant communities exhibited pronounced differences in vegetation–soil conditions and supported distinct nosZ -type communities. LS-associated soils showed the highest richness and the largest pool of community-specific OTUs, whereas Proteobacteria and Bradyrhizobium dominated the overall taxonomic composition. Environmental associations differed between community diversity and taxonomic structure: diversity was more strongly associated with plant biomass, soil temperature, and carbon and nitrogen status, whereas compositional variation was more closely related to soil C ratio, pH, total carbon, moisture, and nitrate nitrogen. Phylogeny-based null-model analysis further indicated that community assembly was predominantly associated with variable selection, although the relative contributions of dispersal limitation and other stochastic processes differed among dominant plant communities. Conclusion These findings demonstrate that dominant plant communities in the Qinghai Lake alpine wetland are associated with coordinated differentiation in vegetation–soil environments, nosZ -type community composition, and assembly processes, thereby characterizing the taxonomic differentiation and inferred assembly of the primer-defined soil nosZ community across contrasting plant-community habitats; however, the implications for realized N₂O reduction require direct validation using gene-abundance, transcriptional, enzyme-activity, and gas-flux measurements.
Source: Frontiers in Microbiology
Authors: Shijia Zhou, Ni Zhang, Jiao Tang, Kelong Chen
Language: English
Subfield: Soil Science
Domain: Life Sciences
SDGs: Life on land, Climate action
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,801
OpenAlex ID: W7223338053