The spatial factor, rather than elevated CO2, controls the soil bacterial community in a temperate forest ecosystem

Abstract

The global atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration is expected to increase continuously over the next century. However, little is known about the responses of soil bacterial communities to elevated CO 2 in terrestrial ecosystems. This study aimed to partition the relative influences of CO2, nitrogen (N), and the spatial factor (different sampling plots) on soil bacterial communities at the free-air CO 2 enrichment research site in Duke Forest, North Carolina, by two independent techniques: An entirely sequencing-based approach and denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis. Multivariate regression tree analysis demonstrated that the spatial factor could explain more than 70% of the varia..