Differences in soil microbial communities with successional stage depend on vegetation coverage and soil substrates in alpine desert shrublands

Abstract

Background and aims In semiarid ecosystems, changes in plant communities are promoted under shrub canopies during restoration, but the link between shrub community restoration dynamics and changes in soil microbe communities is still unclear.Methods We characterized the community structure and plant interactions of soil microbes by combining different methodological approaches (including high-throughput sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene and ITS gene, analysis of phospholipid fatty acids (PLFAs) and chloroform fumigation) and the key driving factors along a successional gradient of Sophora moorcroftiana shrub community in the middle reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River.Results Soil microbial biomass carbon (MBC) and nitrogen (MBN), total PLFAs, and alpha diversity increased signi cantly as the successional stage advanced, and MBC and MBN were positively correlated with the carbon and nitrogen contents in the soil. Mantel test showed that successional stage-induced changes in soil microbial beta diversity were mainly associated with shrub coverage and soil physicochemical properties. The relative abundances of bacterial PLFAs, particularly those of gram-negative bacteria, such as Bacteroidetes, Alphaproteobacteria and Betaproteobacteria, signi cantly decreased with succession; the opposite was true for Acidobacteria, Planctomycetes, Gemmatimonadetes Deltaproteobacteria and Gammaproteobacteria. However, the proportion of fungi did not signi cantly differ among the four successional stages; the dominant phyla were Ascomycota and Basidiomycota. ConclusionWe suggest that shrubs directly shape soil microbial communities or indirectly affect such communities by altering soil substrates. Our ndings advance the current understanding of sand-stabilizing plant-soil interactions during natural restoration and the reversal of deserti cation in stressful desert ecosystems.

Shrub expansion raises both aboveground and underground multifunctionality on a subtropical plateau grassland: coupling multitrophic community assembly to multifunctionality and functional trade-off

“…Pearson correlation, Random Forest ( Jiao et al, 2020 ), Redundancy Analysis (RDA), forward selection ( Dong et al, 2023 ), and hierarchical partitioning ( Lai et al, 2022 ) with 999 permutations were used to determine the effects of the driving forces on the community assembly processes of soil microbiome, multifunctionality, and functional trade-off intensity. The R “vif” function was used to identify variables with collinearity.…”

Effects of Slope Position on Morphological, Anatomical, and Chemical Traits of Cunninghamia lanceolata (Lamb.) Hook. Fine Roots

“…As symbionts in the interaction between roots and soil fungi, mycorrhizae play an important role in the formation of trade-off strategies for fine roots when obtaining soil resources [52]. With the help of mycorrhizal fungi, roots can obtain resources 'by themselves' or 'by outsourcing' to mycorrhizal fungi, thus adopting the resource acquisition-utilization conservative strategy [53]. Therefore, the formation of multiple dimensions of variation in the fine roots of Chinese fir under different slope positions may be related to mycorrhizal colonization [51].…”

Fertilization can accelerate the pace of soil microbial community response to rest‐grazing duration in the three‐river source region of China

“…The solvent was evaporated under a stream of oxygen-free N 2 and the residue subjected to alkaline methanolysis by shaking in a mixture (2 mL) of KOH (0.2 mol L −1 , 1 mL) and toluene: methanol (1:1(v/v), 1 mL), followed by incubation at 37°C for 15 min. After cooling, the mixtures were neutralized with acetic acid the classic and recent paper, 16:1ω5c value was used as a biomarker for arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (Dong et al, 2023;Frostegård & Bååth, 1996). The 16:1ω5c fatty acid was widely regarded as the symbolic fatty acid of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, and its content was often used to estimate the biomass and mycelium of AMF (Bossio & Scow, 1998).…”