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Soil protist function varies with elevation in the Swiss Alps.

Florent Mazel1, Lucie Malard1, Hélène Niculita-Hirzel2

  • 1Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, 1015, Switzerland.

Environmental Microbiology
|August 4, 2021
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Soil protist communities shift with elevation in the Swiss Alps. Consumer protists become more dominant than parasites at higher altitudes, impacting soil functions.

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Area of Science:

  • Soil Ecology
  • Microbial Ecology
  • Eukaryotic Microbiology

Background:

  • Protists are crucial soil microorganisms driving key trophic functions.
  • Understanding protist functional shifts across environmental gradients is vital for predicting ecosystem responses to global change.
  • Soil protist communities significantly influence soil biogeochemical cycles.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate how soil protist functional groups vary along a wide elevational gradient in the Swiss Alps.
  • To determine the influence of elevation and soil properties on protist community composition and trophic roles.
  • To provide foundational data for understanding soil protist contributions to ecosystem processes under changing environmental conditions.

Main Methods:

  • Environmental DNA (eDNA) amplicon sequencing was employed on soil samples from 161 locations across 2600m of elevation.
  • The study spanned an elevational range from 400m to 3000m in the Swiss Alps.
  • Statistical analyses related protist functional groups and taxonomic composition to elevational and soil pH data.

Main Results:

  • Soil protists were dominated by consumers, followed by parasites and phototrophs across the study area.
  • The relative abundance of consumers to parasites significantly increased with elevation, from a ratio of 3:1 at low elevations to 12:1 at high elevations.
  • The taxonomic composition of animal-parasitic protists correlated with elevation, while plant-parasitic and consumer protists correlated with soil pH.

Conclusions:

  • Elevational changes significantly alter soil protist functional composition, likely due to reduced host availability at higher altitudes.
  • Soil pH is a key factor shaping the composition of specific protist functional groups (plant parasites and consumers).
  • This research offers critical insights into the spatial variation of soil protist functions along elevational gradients.