Bioenergy cropping reduces the spatiotemporal scaling of soil bacterial biodiversity

Authors: YE, ZHENGCHENG - Tsinghua University; KUANG, JIALIANG - Oklahoma State University; BATES, COLIN - Oklahoma State University; ESCALAS, ARTHUR - Oklahoma State University; NING, SALIANG - Oklahoma State University; WU, LIYOU - University Of Oklahoma; LIU, SUO - Tsinghua University; DENG, SIHANG - Tsinghua University; LEI, JIESI - Tsinghua University; CHEN, XIANGWEN - South China University Of Technology; PETT-RIDGE, JENNIFER - University Of California Berkeley; SAHA, MALAY - Noble Research Institute; Hale, Lauren; WANG, GANGSHENG - Wuhan University; TIAN, RENMAO - University Of Oklahoma; FU, YING - University Of Oklahoma; TANG, YU - Tsinghua University; FIRESTONE, MARY - University Of California Berkeley; ZHOU, JIZHONG - Tsinghua University; YANG, YUNFENG - Tsinghua University

Submitted to: Advanced Science
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/6/2026
Publication Date: 3/17/2026
Citation: Ye, Z., Kuang, J., Bates, C., Escalas, A., Ning, S., Wu, L., Liu, S., Deng, S., Lei, J., Chen, X., Pett-Ridge, J., Saha, M., Hale, L.E., Wang, G., Tian, R., Fu, Y., Tang, Y., Firestone, M., Zhou, J., Yang, Y. 2026. Bioenergy cropping reduces the spatiotemporal scaling of soil bacterial biodiversity. Advanced Science. 13(29). Article 18964. https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.202518964.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.202518964

Interpretive Summary: Within an agricultural field, a bioenergy crop, switchgrass, reduced variances in soil bacterial diversity across space and time. The observed reduced variance represents a stabilizing effect for microbial communities under disturbances and provides a strategy for maintaining ecosystem services provided by soil microorganisms.

Technical Abstract: Understanding the spatiotemporal scaling of biodiversity, typically described as species–time-area relationships (STARs), is essential for biodiversity preservation, particularly in the context of large-scale bioenergy cropping systems under different environmental conditions such as soil types. However, it remains unknown how bioenergy cropping affects microbial STARs. Here, we investigated the effects of bioenergy cropping on the spatiotemporal scaling of soil bacteria in sandy loam and clay loam soils in Oklahoma, USA. We detected strong, significant STARs and phylogenetic-time-area relationships (PTARs) in bacterial communities and their lineages, with consistently negative time-space interactions and significantly lower PTAR exponents compared to STAR exponents. Also, spatiotemporal scaling rates varied substantially among bacterial lineages and were positively correlated with their 16S rRNA gene copy numbers. Strikingly, switchgrass cropping significantly reduced spatiotemporal scaling rates by 6.8%-14.1%, with a more pronounced reduction observed in sandy loam soils, where scaling rates were significantly lower than in clay loam soils. The changed soil variability could result in variations in bacterial spatiotemporal scaling rates. Collectively, our findings suggest that switchgrass cropping effects on soil microbial composition is soil type-dependent and may alleviate rapid shifts in soil microbial community structures across space and time.