Human land use promotes range expansion of soil protists from temperate to subtropical regions in China
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View abstract on PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.Human land use promotes the spread of generalist soil protists, expanding their ranges from temperate to subtropical regions. This range expansion is driven by altered soil pH, with implications for biological homogenization.
Area Of Science
- Ecology
- Microbial Biogeography
- Environmental Science
Background
- Land-use change significantly impacts aboveground species distribution globally.
- The effects of land-use change on soil organisms, particularly microbiota, are not well understood.
- Mechanistic insights into how environmental factors drive soil microbial distribution shifts due to biological homogenization are lacking.
Purpose Of The Study
- To investigate the biogeography of soil protists in response to land-use change.
- To understand the relationships between protists, their prey, and hosts across different ecosystems.
- To identify environmental drivers of soil protist distribution shifts in human-dominated landscapes.
Main Methods
- Metabarcoding analysis of soil protist communities.
- Comparison of protist distribution in farmlands, residential areas, parks, and natural forests.
- Investigation across subtropical and temperate climatic regions in China.
Main Results
- Human land-use systems facilitated the spread of habitat-generalist protists, extending their distribution ranges.
- The expansion was directional, primarily from temperate to subtropical regions, influenced by increased soil pH.
- Phagotrophic protists showed greater cross-region spread than phototrophs and parasites, suggesting co-dispersal with microbial prey like bacteria.
Conclusions
- Land-use changes create conditions favoring the spread of specific soil protist groups, potentially increasing biological invasions.
- Increased soil pH in human-modified ecosystems lowers natural barriers, enabling temperate-to-subtropical range expansion.
- These findings highlight the significant impact of land-use change on soil microbial communities, especially in understudied subtropical and tropical regions, contributing to global biological homogenization.
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