Tropical peatlands are an important carbon store and source of greenhouse gases, but the microbial component, particularly community structure, remains poorly understood. While microbial communities vary between tropical peatland land uses, and with biogeochemical gradients, it is unclear if their structure varies at smaller spatial scales as has been established for a variety of peat properties. We assessed the abundances of PLFAs and GDGTs, two membrane spanning lipid biomarkers in bacteria and fungi, and bacteria and archaea, respectively, to characterise peat microbial communities under two dominant and contrasting plant species, Campnosperma panamensis (a broadleaved evergreen tree), and Raphia taedigera (a canopy palm), in a Panamanian tropical peatland. The plant communities supported similar microbial communities dominated by Gram negative bacteria (38.9–39.8%), with smaller but significant fungal and archaeal communities. The abundance of specific microbial groups, as well as the ratio of caldarchaeol:crenarchaeol, isoGDGT: brGDGTs and fungi:bacteria were linearly related to gravimetric moisture content, redox potential, pH and organic matter content indicating their role in regulating microbial community structure. These results suggest that tropical peatlands can exhibit significant variability in microbial community abundance even at small spatial scales, driven by both peat botanical origin and localised differences in specific peat properties.

热带泥炭地是重要的碳存储和温室气体的来源，但微生物成分，尤其是社区结构，仍然知之甚少。尽管微生物群落在热带泥炭地的土地利用和生物地球化学梯度之间有所不同，但尚不清楚其结构是否在较小的空间尺度上发生变化，正如针对各种泥炭特性所建立的那样。我们分别评估了PLFAs和GDGTs（细菌和真菌中的两个跨膜脂质生物标记物）的丰度，分别表征了两种优势植物和对立植物物种Campansperma panamensis（阔叶常绿树）和Raphia下的泥炭微生物群落。taedigera（冠层棕榈），位于巴拿马热带泥炭地中。植物群落支持以革兰氏阴性菌为主的类似微生物群落（38.9–39.8％），具有较小但重要的真菌和古细菌群落。特定微生物群的丰富度，以及卡他古醇：克雷那香酚，isoGDGT：brGDGTs和真菌：细菌的比例与重量水分，氧化还原电势，pH和有机物含量呈线性关系，表明它们在调节微生物群落结构中的作用。这些结果表明，热带泥炭地在泥炭植物起源和特定泥炭特性的局部差异的驱动下，即使在较小的空间尺度上，微生物群落的丰度也表现出显着的变异性。