Diversity of dominant soil bacteria increases with warming velocity at the global scale

Abstract

Understanding global soil bacterial diversity is important because of the key roles soil bacteria play in the global ecosystem. Given the effects of environmental changes (e.g., climate change and human effect) on the diversity of animals and plants, effects on soil bacterial diversity are expected; however, they have been poorly evaluated to date. Thus, in this study, we focused on the soil dominant bacteria because of their global importance and investigated the effects of warming velocity and human activities on their diversity. Using a global dataset of bacteria, we performed spatial analysis to evaluate the effects, while statistically controlling for the potential confounding effects of current climate and geographic parameters with global climate and geographic data. It was demonstrated that the diversity of the dominant soil bacteria was influenced globally by warming velocity (showing significant increases) in addition to aridity index (dryness) and pH. The effects of warming velocity were particularly significant in forests and grasslands. An effect from human activity was also observed, but it was secondary to warming velocity. These findings provide robust evidence, and advance our understanding of the effects of environmental changes (particularly global warming) on soil bacterial diversity at the global scale.