日前，清华大学环境学院周集中研究团队与中科院生态环境研究中心邓晔研究员等学者合作，发现了全球气候变暖背景下森林土壤微生物多样性受温度调控的规律。相关成果发布于《自然—通讯》。

生态代谢理论从反映化学反应速率的阿伦尼乌斯公式出发，预测升温可加快物种代谢和分化，使得物种多样性与环境温度形成指数性上升关系。这一理论在动植物学研究中得到了证明，但对于微生物的适用性一直未能厘清。

周集中、邓晔与美国科学院院士詹姆斯·布朗等人合作，利用高通量测序技术对北美大范围的森林土壤样品进行了分析，发现森林土壤细菌、真菌、固氮菌等种群也遵循生态代谢理论。温度是大空间尺度上最重要的调控因素，其效应要强于学界普遍认可的土壤pH值的影响。但是与植物相比，微生物受温度的调控稍弱。另外由于受土壤异质性的影响，在以往的实验中未能充分认识到土壤微生物多样性的调控机制。

这一发现不仅证明了生态代谢理论可以外延至环境微生物，说明了化学热力学定律在物种进化中的重要作用，而且对于预测生态系统对气候、环境扰动的响应和生态保护都具有指导意义。（来源：中国科学报 彭科峰）

Temperature mediates continental-scale diversity of microbes in forest soils

Abstract  Climate warming is increasingly leading to marked changes in plant and animal biodiversity, but it remains unclear how temperatures affect microbial biodiversity, particularly in terrestrial soils. Here we show that, in accordance with metabolic theory of ecology, taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity of soil bacteria, fungi and nitrogen fixers are all better predicted by variation in environmental temperature than pH. However, the rates of diversity turnover across the global temperature gradients are substantially lower than those recorded for trees and animals, suggesting that the diversity of plant, animal and soil microbial communities show differential responses to climate change. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study demonstrating that the diversity of different microbial groups has significantly lower rates of turnover across temperature gradients than other major taxa, which has important implications for assessing the effects of human-caused changes in climate, land use and other factors.

原文链接：http://159.226.251.229/videoplayer/ncomms12083.pdf?ich_u_r_i=cd3df34872d1e614542047c64ae16e32&ich_s_t_a_r_t=0&ich_e_n_d=0&ich_k_e_y=1645078918750063142456&ich_t_y_p_e=1&ich_d_i_s_k_i_d=10&ich_u_n_i_t=1