Biogeography, assembly processes and species coexistence patterns of microbial communities in metalloids-laden soils around mining and smelting sites

Abstract Microbes are important component in terrestrial ecosystem, which are believed to play vital roles in biogeochemical cycles of metalloids in mining and smelting surroundings. Many studies on microbial diversity and structures have been investigated around mining and smelting sites whereas the ecological processes and co-occurrence patterns that influence the biogeographic distributions of microbial communities is yet poorly understood. Herein, microbial biogeography, assembly mechanism and co-occurrence pattern around mining and smelting zone were systematically unraveled using 16 S rRNA gene sequencing. The 66 microbial phyla co-occurring across all the samples were dominated by Proteobacteria, Chloroflexi, Acidobacteria and Crenarchaeota. Obvious distance-decay (r = 0.3448, p