Coupling temperature-dependent spatial turnover of microbes and plants using the metabolic theory of ecology

There is an urgent need to understand the coupled relationship between belowground microbes and aboveground plants in response to temperature under climate change. The metabolic theory of ecology (MTE) provides a way to predict the metabolic rate and species diversity, but the spatial scale dependence and connections between plants and microorganisms are still unclear. Here, we used two independent datasets to address this question. One is from comprehensive sampling of paddy fields targeting bacteria and microbial functional genes, and the other is a global metadata of spatial turnover for microorganisms (bacteria, fungi and archaea, n = 139) and plants (n = 206). Results showed that spatial turnover of bacterial communities and microbial functional genes increased with temperature and fitted MTE. Through meta-analysis, the temperature-dependent spatial scale pattern was further extended to the global scale, with the spatial turnover of microorganisms and plants being consistent with MTE. Belowground microorganisms and aboveground plants were closely linked with each other even when controlling for temperature, suggesting that factors other than shared relationships with temperature also contribute to their linkages. These results implied a broad application of MTE in biology and have important implications for predicting the ecological consequences of future climate warming.