Plant types shape soil microbial composition, diversity, function, and co‐occurrence patterns in cultivated land of a karst area

Abstract

Plants can alter microbial communities through root exudates, and change the characteristics of the soil. However, the relationship between soil microbial communities and environmental factors is not well understood. Here, we studied bacterial and fungal communities and their relationships with environmental factors. We integrated data of environmental factors, microbial composition, diversity, functional prediction, and co-occurrence network from uncultivated, maize, cabbage, and cocozelle soils in a karst area of Southwest China. Soil bacterial and fungal community composition differed with plant types. Maize soil had more taxa and greater alpha diversity of bacteria and fungi than other soils. In maize soil, the relative abundance of Actinobacteria and Ascomycota was significantly lower than that in uncultivated soil, while its contents of soil organic matter (OM), alkali-hydrolyzable nitrogen, and total nitrogen (TN) showed the opposite trend. These indicators were not significantly different between cabbage and cocozelle soils. The results of the Mantel test and the RDA analysis indicated that TN and OM were important drivers of bacterial and fungal communities. Functional prediction and network analysis showed that maize soil had a high nitrogen fixation capacity and a complex and stable network. To summarize, maize soil not had a low relative abundance of Ascomycota and high content of TN and OM, nitrogen fixation ability, and a rich microbial community. Therefore, cultivating maize is suitable for improving soil microbial community. These findings might help in formulating a reasonable cultivation management program to prevent land degradation in the karst areas.

Afforestation alters soil microbial community composition and reduces microbial network complexity in a karst region of Southwest China

“…cross‐feeding, syntrophic interactions, and commensalism as well as shared habitat requirements) dominated the ecological network. Similar, Wei et al (2023) in a karst region of Southwest China and Chen et al (2023) in the Inner Mongolia Plateau also found that the ratio of positive to negative edges increased when the soil environmental conditions became better and stable. The increasing in cooperative and co‐dependence relationships among soil microorganisms was conducive to better use of environmental resources for microorganism's growth in suitable habitats, and thus increasing the ratio of positive to negative edges in ecological network of soil microbial community in these studies (Chen et al, 2023; Li et al, 2023).…”

Impact of Straw Incorporation on the Physicochemical Profile and Fungal Ecology of Saline–Alkaline Soil

“…The observed inverse relationship between pH levels and total nitrogen (TN) content, as well as microbial communities, aligns with previous investigations [ 66 , 67 ]. Consequently, the makeup of soil microbial communities is impacted [ 68 ], thereby highlighting the significance of organic matter as a key determinant of fungal communities [ 69 ]. The findings of AN and AP in a study conducted by Sun et al [ 70 ] exhibited a resemblance to the results observed in the present investigation.…”

Microbial functional genes within soil aggregates drive organic carbon mineralization under contrasting tillage practices

“…Finally, all co-occurrence topological features were calculated, and the network image was generated with the "igraph" package in R (Wei et al, 2023). Detailed steps of co-occurrence network construction are provided in the Supporting Information.…”

“…Then, using the “sciplot” and “ggmisc” packages, we analyzed the significantly different modules in the bacterial co‐occurrence network and correlations between the significantly different modules and SOC storage (Hartman et al, 2018). Finally, all co‐occurrence topological features were calculated, and the network image was generated with the “igraph” package in R (Wei et al, 2023). Detailed steps of co‐occurrence network construction are provided in the Supporting Information.…”