Evidence of sustainable land use: the reclamation of desertified lands to plant vineyards

Abstract

Desertified land reclamation for the purposes of winegrape cultivation can profoundly alter the properties of the underlying soil and the microbial communities therein. Herein, we assessed the effects of such reclamation of non-productive desert land on the soil microbial communities associated with the resultant vineyards, and to identify key soil properties related to these changes. Soil was collected from natural desert land (DL) and from different reclaimed vineyard types: Cabernet Sauvignon (CS), Merlot (M), Chardonnay (C), and Italian Riesling (IR). High-throughput sequencing was used to assess microbial community composition and diversity in these samples. Significant differences in soil organic carbon (SOC), total nitrogen, available nitrogen, available phosphorus, and pH were detected when comparing soil from DL and reclaimed lands. CS, M, C, and IR soils exhibited higher relative Actinobacteria, Proteobacteria, and Ascomycota abundance, while DL soil exhibited higher relative Acidobacteria and Mortierellomycota abundance. In total, 165 and 55 bacterial and fungal amplicon sequence variants or operational taxonomic units (ASVs/OTUs) were shared across land use types. Following reclamation, soil bacteria ASVs/OTUs in CS, M, C, and IR soils rose to 2846, 3191, 7630, and 6373, respectively. Biomarkers of these different land use types were successfully identified via an LDA Effect Size (LEfSe) approach, while key soil properties including pH, SOC, and available nitrogen were found to be associated with these changes in microbial community structural composition following reclamation. As such, our data indicate that viticulture in desertified regions can enhance soil properties and microbial diversity, thereby supporting sustainable land use.