Plant Diversity and Fungal Richness Regulate the Changes in Soil Multifunctionality in a Semi-Arid Grassland

Abstract

Loss in plant diversity is expected to impact biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (BEF) in terrestrial ecosystems. Soil microbes play essential roles in regulating ecosystem functions. However, the important roles and differences in bacterial and fungal diversity and rare microbial taxa in driving soil multifunctionality based on plant diversity remain poorly understood in grassland ecosystems. Here, we carried out an experiment in six study sites with varied plant diversity levels to evaluate the relationships between soil bacterial and fungal diversity, rare taxa, and soil multifunctionality in a semi-arid grassland. We used Illumina HiSeq sequencing to determine soil bacterial and fungal diversity and evaluated soil functions associated with the nutrient cycle. We found that high diversity plant assemblages had a higher ratio of below-ground biomass to above-ground biomass, soil multifunctionality, and lower microbial carbon limitation than those with low diversity. Moreover, the fungal richness was negatively and significantly associated with microbial carbon limitations. The fungal richness was positively related to soil multifunctionality, but the bacterial richness was not. We also found that the relative abundance of saprotrophs was positively correlated with soil multifunctionality, and the relative abundance of pathogens was negatively correlated with soil multifunctionality. In addition, the rare fungal taxa played a disproportionate role in regulating soil multifunctionality. Structural equation modeling showed that the shift of plant biomass allocation patterns increased plant below-ground biomass in the highly diverse plant plots, which can alleviate soil microbial carbon limitations and enhance the fungal richness, thus promoting soil multifunctionality. Overall, these findings expand our comprehensive understanding of the critical role of soil fungal diversity and rare taxa in regulating soil multifunctionality under global plant diversity loss scenarios.

ENDOPHYTIC FUNGAL COMMUNITY OF ALIEN Nicotiana glauca IN TENERIFE, CANARY ISLANDS

“…Fungal community in Fasnia had the highest value of species richness (Margalef index = 3.69 versus 2.17 and 2.27 for San Miguel de Abona and Puerto de la Cruz, respectively). There is a major difference between the ecosystems of the selected locations, with Fasnia being at the highest elevation (489 m) compared to Abona and Puerto de la Cruz which are below 200 m. It was previously observed (Rottstock et al, 2014;Li et al, 2022) that a higher diversity of plants in the area may influence in a higher diversity of the fungi inside one of the plant species. All plants were indeed collected from the borders of roads but a distinction should be made between the areas.…”

“…al., 2008). Closely related to the latter but not so scarcely present in the fungal studies, Botryotrichum was isolated from cucurbit plants (Huang et al, 2020), Rhizophora mangrove trees (Zhou & Xu, 2018), lianas (Bagchi & Banerjee, 2014), orchids like Cattleya species (Lizarazo-Medina et al, 2014), wheat rhizosphere in Iraq (Minati & Mohammed-Ameen, 2020), Eucalyptus spp. in Uruguay (Simeto et al, 2005) and cacao (Schmidt, 2012).…”

Trophic interactions in soil micro‐food webs drive ecosystem multifunctionality along tree species richness

“…Soil organisms have been proven to be important drivers of ecosystem multifunctionality (Delgado‐Baquerizo et al., 2020; Shi et al., 2021; Wagg et al., 2014). However, much attention has tended to be focused on the role of single microbial groups, such as bacteria and fungi, in the regulation of ecosystem functions (Li et al., 2022; Yuan et al., 2021). Nevertheless, a multitrophic perspective is particularly crucial for low‐latitude forests, where trophic interactions of highly diverse communities influence ecosystem functions (Schuldt et al., 2018).…”