The impact of conspecific and heterospecific neighboring plants on soil bacterial and fungal communities has never been explored in a forest ecosystem. In the present study, we first investigated soil microbial communities in three plantations: Larix kaempferi monoculture, L. olgensis monoculture and their mixture. Then, a two-year growth experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of intra-and inter-specific plant interactions of L. kaempferi and L. olgensis on rhizosphere microbial communities in different nitrogen conditions. The results demonstrated clear differences in the beta-diversity and composition of bacteria and fungi among the three plantations, which implied different effects of plant-plant interactions on soil microbial communities. The results of the pot experiment showed that L. kaempferi suffered from greater negative effects from its conspecific neighbor regardless of the N fertilization, whereas the negative effect declined when L. kaempferi was grown with L. olgensis under N fertilization. Changes in intra-and inter-specific plant interactions significantly impacted the chemical and biological properties of soil under N fertilization, with lower concentrations of NH4 + , and lower soil microbial biomass (CMic) and soil carbon nitrogen biomass (NMic) under intra-specific plant interactions of L. kaempferi (KK) compared to inter-specific interactions of L. kaempferi and L. olgensis (KO). N fertilization increased bacterial and fungal alpha diversities in the rhizosphere soil of KO. For the beta diversity, the PERMANOVA results demonstrated that there was a significant impact of intra-and inter-specific plant interactions on soil microbial communities, with KK significantly differing from intra-specific plant interactions of L. olgensis (OO) and KO. The two plant species 3 and N fertilization showed specific effects on the soil microbial composition, particularly on the fungal community. Both L. olgensis and N fertilization increased the abundance of Ascomycota but reduced that of Basidiomycota, and even shifted the dominance of Basidiomycota to Ascomycota in KO under N fertilization. Based on our results, we suggest that L. kaempferi planted with L. olgensis under N fertilization may be an efficient way to promote the productivity of plantations.
To increase yield and/or enhance resistance to diseases, grafting is often applied in agriculture and horticulture. Interspecific grafting could possibly be used in forestry as well to improve drought resistance, but our understanding of how the rootstock of a more drought-resistant species can affect the grafted plant is very limited. Reciprocal grafts of two poplar species, Populus cathayana Rehder (less drought-resistant, C) and Populus deltoides Bart. ex Marsh (more drought-resistant, D) were generated. Four grafting combinations (scion/rootstock: C/C, C/D, D/D and D/C) were subjected to well-watered and drought stress treatments. C/D and D/C had a higher diameter growth rate, leaf biomass, intrinsic water-use efficiency (WUEi) and total non-structural carbohydrate (NSC) content than C/C and D/D in well-watered condition. However, drought caused greater differences between P. deltoides-rooted and P. cathayana-rooted grafting combinations, especially between C/D and D/C. The C/D grafting combination showed higher resistance to drought, as indicated by a higher stem growth rate, net photosynthetic rate, WUEi, leaf water potential, proline concentration and NSC concentration and maintenance of integrity of the leaf cellular ultrastructure under drought when compared with D/C. D/C exhibited severely damaged cell membranes, mitochondria and chloroplasts under drought. The scion genotype caused a strong effect on the root proline concentration: the P. cathayana scion increased the root proline concentration more than the P. deltoides scion (C/C vs D/C and C/D vs D/D) under water deficit. Our results demonstrated that mainly the rootstock was responsible for the drought resistance of grafting combinations. Grafting of the P. cathayana scion onto P. deltoides rootstock resulted in superior growth and biomass when compared with the other three combinations both in well-watered and drought stress conditions.
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