CARD-FISH analysis of prokaryotic community composition and abundance along small-scale vegetation gradients in a dry arctic tundra ecosystem

The size and composition of soil microbial communities have important influences on terrestrial ecosystem processes such as soil decomposition. However, compared with studies of aboveground plant communities, there are relatively few studies on belowground microbial communities and their interactions with aboveground vegetations in the arctic region. In this study, we conducted the first investigation of the abundance and composition of prokaryotic communities along small-scale vegetation gradients (ca. 1–3 m) in a dry arctic tundra ecosystem in Northern Sweden using fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) coupled with catalyzed reporter deposition (CARD). The number of prokaryotic cells increased with increasing vegetation cover along vegetation gradients, mainly as a function of increased amounts of soil carbon and moisture. Eubacteria and Archaea constituted approximately 59.7% and 33.4% of DAPI-positive cells, respectively. Among the analyzed bacterial phyla and sub-phyla, Acidobacteria and α-proteobacteria were the most dominant groups, constituting approximately 13.5% and 10.7% of DAPI-positive cells, respectively. Interestingly, the soil prokaryotic community composition was relatively unaffected by the dramatic changes in the aboveground vegetation community. Multivariate analyses suggested that the prokaryotic community composition depended on soil pH rather than on aboveground vegetation. Surface plants are weak predictors of the composition of the soil microbial community in the studied soil system and the size of the community is constrained by carbon and water availability. In addition, our study demonstrated that CARD-FISH, which is still a rarely-used technique in soil ecology, is effective for quantifying soil microbes.