@article {Nottingham079996, author = {Andrew T. Nottingham and Noah Fierer and Benjamin L. Turner and Jeanette Whitaker and Nick J. Ostle and Niall P. McNamara and Richard D. Bardgett and Jonathan W. Leff and Norma Salinas and Adan J.Q. Ccahuana and Miles Silman and Patrick Meir}, title = {Temperature drives plant and soil microbial diversity patterns across an elevation gradient from the Andes to the Amazon}, elocation-id = {079996}, year = {2016}, doi = {10.1101/079996}, publisher = {Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory}, abstract = {Climate strongly regulates plant community composition and diversity, exemplified by gradients in plant diversity and community structure with elevation. However, we do not know if soil bacteria and fungi, key drivers of terrestrial biogeochemical cycling, follow similar biogeographical patterns determined by the same climatic drivers.We studied an Andean tropical forest transect traversing 3.5 km in elevation. The species richness (α-diversity) and compositional dissimilarity of communities (β-diversity) were determined for plants, bacteria and fungi. We determined the environmental drivers of these patterns, using 31 environmental and edaphic predictor variables, and the relationship between microbial communities and soil organic matter cycling (extracellular enzymes).We found co-ordinated changes with elevation in the species richness and composition of plants, soil bacteria and fungi. Across all groups, α-diversity declined significantly as elevation increased, and β-diversity increased with increased elevation difference. Temperature was the dominant driver of these diversity gradients, with only weak influences of edaphic properties, including soil pH, which did not vary substantially across the study transect. The gradients in microbial diversity were strongly correlated with the activities of enzymes involved in soil organic matter cycling, and were accompanied by a transition in microbial traits, towards slower-growing, more oligotrophic taxa at higher elevations.We provide the first evidence of co-ordinated temperature-driven patterns in the diversity and distribution of plants, soil bacteria and fungi in tropical ecosystems. This finding suggest that, across landscape scales of relatively constant soil pH, shared patterns and environmental drivers of plant and microbial communities can occur, with large implications for tropical forest communities under future climate change.}, URL = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/10/12/079996}, eprint = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/10/12/079996.full.pdf}, journal = {bioRxiv} }