Soil microbial identity explains home-field advantage for litter decomposition.

Unraveling the mechanisms of home-field advantage (HFA) is essential to gain a complete understanding of litter decomposition processes. However, knowledge of the relationships between HFA effects and microbial communities is lacking. To examine HFA effects on litter decomposition, we identified the microbial communities and conducted a reciprocal transplant experiment, including all possible combinations of soil and litter, between sites at two elevations in cool-temperate forests.

Diversity profiling of soil bacterial and fungal communities in the Ogasawara (Bonin) Islands, Japan.

Island biogeography research provides insight into microbial diversity patterns; however, little is known about the diversity and distribution of soil microbial communities on remote and poorly accessible islands. Here, we present amplicon sequencing data from bacterial and fungal communities in the surface soils of the Ogasawara (Bonin) Islands, Japan.

Seasonal Dynamics of Soil Fungal and Bacterial Communities in Cool-Temperate Montane Forests.

Both fungal and bacterial communities in soils play key roles in driving forest ecosystem processes across multiple time scales, but how seasonal changes in environmental factors shape these microbial communities is not well understood. Here, we aimed to evaluate the importance of seasons, elevation, and soil depth in determining soil fungal and bacterial communities, given the influence of climate conditions, soil properties and plant traits. In this study, seasonal patterns of diversity and abundance did not synchronize between fungi and bacteria, where soil fertility explained the diversity and abundance of soil fungi but soil water content explained those of soil bacteria.

Plant functional diversity and soil properties control elevational diversity gradients of soil bacteria.

Elevational gradients represent model systems for understanding the relationships between soil microbial communities and environmental factors, but the multiple influences of plant-soil linkages and climate conditions on elevational diversity gradients (EDGs) of soil microbes have never been explored. Here, we examined how climate conditions, plant diversity and soil properties affect EDGs of soil bacteria at different soil depths. Bacterial communities were investigated at four soil depths in 60 vegetation survey plots along elevational gradients in central Japan.