Plant‐mycorrhizae association affects plant diversity, biomass, and soil nutrients along temporal gradients of natural restoration after farmland abandonment in the Loess Plateau, China

Abstract

The interaction between plants and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in the rhizosphere plays a vital role in driving vegetation recovery and restoration of soil nutrients. However, how this interaction affects vegetation succession and how soil nutrient recovery is driven by vegetation restoration and rhizosphere processes are still largely unknown. In this study, a well‐documented grassland restoration chronosequence on the Loess Plateau, China (fields at 0, 7, 12, 17, 22, and 32 years after farmland abandonment and a natural grassland reference) was selected. The species richness and diversity reached maximum values between 17 and 22 years after farmland abandonment, whereas the plant total above and belowground biomasses simultaneously peaked at 22 years and then remained stable. In the dominant plant rhizosphere and bulk soil concentrations of total glomalin‐related soil protein (including both old and recently produced fungal proteins) substantially increased from 3.58 to 4.87 g kg−1 and from 2.67 to 3.86 g kg−1, respectively, between 12 and 32 years after farmland abandonment. The concentrations of soil organic carbon (SOC) and total nitrogen (TN) in the plant rhizosphere and bulk soil significantly increased between 17 and 32 years and reached the levels of the natural grassland. The aboveground plant biomass, soil SOC, and TN concentrations were positively correlated with the glomalin‐related soil protein (GRSP) concentration (p < .05). Our study suggested that interactions among plant‐mycorrhizae association, plant diversity, and biomass promote GRSP and nutrient accumulation in the plant rhizosphere and bulk soil, and GRSP largely contributes to SOC stabilization and the accumulation of SOC and TN.

Soil labile organic carbon sequestration is tightly correlated with the abundance and diversity of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in semiarid maize fields

“…Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi can form symbiotic relationships with most crops and are an integral component of the sustainable development of agriculture (Cavagnaro, Bender, Asghari, & van der Heijden, 2015). AM fungi have been demonstrated to influence SOC by incorporating and transporting C through the extramatrical hyphal length (EMH) (Leake et al, 2004;Leifheit, Verbruggen, & Rillig, 2015), producing glomalin-related soil protein (GRSP) (Dai et al, 2015;Liu et al, 2019), as well as by providing C to the microbial community (Jones, Nguyen, & Finlay, 2009). Whilst the role and experimental quantification of AM fungi in plant production in agriculture has often been debated (Ryan, Graham, Morton, & Kirkegaard, 2019), they are undoubtedly an important component of the soil ecosystem (Qin et al, 2020).…”

Aboveground biomass production and dominant species type determined canopy storage capacity of abandoned grassland communities on semiarid Loess Plateau

“…The soil type is classified as Calcic Cambisols according to Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), originated from parent wind‐deposited yellow material. The soil has a silty texture and wetness‐induced collapsibility, with low content of organic carbon, available N and P and high available K (Liu et al, 2019; Zhao et al, 2016). The Zhifanggou catchment was selected as a key experimental site of integrative management programme on soil water conservation and vegetation restoration since 1970.…”

“…The substitution of ‘space’ for ‘time’ is a common and effective method to study the changes in water storage capacities and community characteristics following natural vegetation restoration (Liu et al, 2019). Four sloped farmlands with similar climatic and geographical conditions that had been abandoned for 2, 7, 15 and 30 years were systematically selected in the Zhifanggou catchment.…”

Accumulation of glomalin‐related soil protein benefits soil carbon sequestration: Tropical coastal forest restoration experiences

“…In the early-1950s, tens of thousands of hectares of soil had been degraded in the tropical coastal area in southern China due to severe erosion after massive deforestation (Ren et al, 2007). Studies have found that GRSP increased with vegetation recovery time in forests (Qiao et al, 2019) and grasslands (Liu et al, 2019) (Wu et al, 2021;Zhang et al, 2019) with the restoration processes. As to the production of AMF, its contribution to SOC and information on GRSP are not clear; it can be assumed accumulation of the latter varied with the restoration practices.…”