Soil Microbial and Plant Diversity Across a 2500 km Chinese Forest Gradient

30 natural broadleaved forest sites were surveyed along a 2500 km latitudinal gradient (18°–40°N) in China. The dataset, from the Chinese Academy of Forestry, includes soil bacterial and fungal diversity data from Illumina sequencing alongside plant diversity measurements. Analysis indicates soil pH and climate are key drivers of microbial community structure.

Use Cases

• Modeling soil microbial alpha-diversity patterns based on latitude and climate variables.
• Investigating the ecological linkage between plant beta-diversity and soil microbial beta-diversity.
• Assessing the relative importance of soil pH versus plant diversity on microbial community structure using structural equation modeling.

Strengths

• Data from 30 distinct forest sites provides a broad spatial sample.
• Simultaneous survey of plant and soil microbial diversity allows for direct comparison.
• Analysis uses advanced techniques including Illumina sequencing and partial Mantel tests.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

Chinese Academy of Forestry

Collection Method

Field survey and Illumina sequencing

Geography

China (18°–40°N latitude)