Global analysis of soil bacterial genera and diversity in response to pH

Abstract

Soil pH stands as a decisive factor in shaping bacterial diversity and community composition, yet predicting the pH preferences and traits of individual bacterial taxa is still incomplete. We surveyed 942 samples from seven biomes worldwide to unravel the responses of individual bacterial genus to soil pH. Our findings indicate that soil pH surpasses the influences of spatial and climatic factors (biomes) in affecting bacterial composition and diversity. We observed that a comparable proportion of genera had low pH optima (21%), high pH optima (18%), and neutral pH optima (18%). However, apart from genera with optima groups, only a small percentage of genera were low pH tolerant (0.8%) compared to those that were high pH tolerant (21%). This suggests that a greater number of non-extremophiles genera can tolerate alkaline conditions compared to acidic conditions. Bacterial richness forms unimodal relationship with soil pH, consistently increasing from acidic levels to neutral across all biomes. However, the decline in richness when pH rises beyond neutral was less pronounced. This can be attributed to the higher number of alkaline-tolerant genera compared to acidic-tolerant genera. As expected, genera with acidic optima are more prevalent in humid climates, such as tropical forests, arctic tundra, and boreal forests, whereas genera with alkaline optima are generally dominant in arid grasslands and drylands. Collectively, our results indicate that the probability of existence of at least 75% of genera in specific soil pH conditions can be predicted, irrespective of biome. The identification of the actual niche spaces occupied by individual soil bacterial genera forms the foundation for developing comprehensive hypotheses regarding the response of soil communities to changing soil conditions worldwide.