Soil bacterial community structure of fog‐dependent Tillandsia landbeckii dunes in the Atacama Desert

• Published in: Plant systematics and evolution Vol. 307; no. 5
• Main Authors: Alfaro, Fernando D., Manzano, Marlene, Almiray, Cristian, García, Juan-Luis, Osses, Pablo, del Rio, Camilo, Vargas, Constanza, Latorre, Claudio, Koch, Marcus A., Siegmund, Alexander, Abades, Sebastian
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Vienna Springer Vienna 01-10-2021; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Abundance; Bacteria; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Community composition; Community structure; Composition; Desert plants; Dunes; Flowers & plants; Fog; Life Sciences; Living at its dry limits - Tillandsiales in the Atacama Desert; Microbial activity; Microorganisms; Nutrients; Original Article; Plant Anatomy/Development; Plant Ecology; Plant Sciences; Plant Systematics/Taxonomy/Biogeography; Plants; Soil microorganisms; Soil structure; Soil water; Soils; Structure-function relationships; Tillandsia; Rootless; Plant/soil feedback; Desert; Marine fog
• ISSN: 0378-2697; 1615-6110; 2199-6881
• DOI: 10.1007/s00606-021-01781-0

The interplay between plants and soil drives the structure and function of soil microbial communities. In water-limited environments where vascular plants are often absent and only specialized groups of rootless plants grow, this interaction could be mainly asymmetric, with plants supporting nutrients and resources via litter deposition. In this study, we use observational approaches to evaluate the impact of local distribution of
Tillandsia landbeckii
across elevation on soil bacterial community structure and composition in the Atacama Fog Desert.
Tillandsia landbeckii
is a plant without functional roots that develops on meter-scale sand dunes and depends mainly on marine fog that transports resources (water and nutrients) from the Pacific Ocean. Our data show that soil bacterial abundance, richness, and diversity were significantly higher beneath
T. landbeckii
plants relative to bare soils. However, these differences were not significant across
T. landbeckii
located at different elevations and with different input of marine fog. On the other hand, bacterial community composition was significantly different with
T. landbeckii
plants across elevations. Further, samples beneath
T. landbeckii
and bare soils showed significant differences in bacterial community composition. Around 99% of all operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were recorded exclusively beneath
T. landbeckii
, and only 1% of OTUs were observed in bare soils. These findings suggest that the presence of
T. landbeckii
promotes significant increases in bacterial abundance and diversity compared with bare soils, although we fail to demonstrate that local-scale changes in elevation can affect patterns of soil bacterial diversity and abundance beneath
T. landbeckii
.