Shifts in the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal community composition of Betula alnoides along young, middle-aged plantation and adjacent natural forest

Abstract

Biogeosciences and Forestry Biogeosciences and Forestry Shifts in the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal community composition of Betula alnoides along young, middle-aged plantation and adjacent natural forest Yuebo Jing (1-2) , Tao Li (1) , Hongliang Cui (3) , Lingfei Li (4) , Samuel C Allen (5) , Lin Chen (1) , Yongpeng Li (2) , Zhiwei Zhao (1) Betula alnoides is a fast-growing and native timber species prevalently planted in tropical and subtropical areas of southern China. Despite the large-scale development of B. alnoides plantations, knowledge of its association with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) is limited. In the present study, we chose young (3-year-old sapling, P3y) and middle-aged (12-year-old stand, P12y) B. alnoides plantations and adjacent native forest (N) in the Puwen Tropical Forest Experimental Station located in Xishuangbanna prefecture of Yunnan Province, southwestern China, as study materials and explored the change in AMF community composition in the plantation chronosequence. In addition, we combined morphological methods and Illumina MiSeq sequencing techniques to analyze rhizosphere soil AMF. The results indicated that the AMF richness and diversity indexes of B. alnoides at two ages tended to be similar to those of natural growing trees in native forest. However, the specific AM fungal compositions were distinctly different, providing evidence of the conservation value of the native forest, which harbors a unique AMF diversity. Hierarchical cluster analysis further revealed that the AMF community composition of trees in the mid-aged stand (P12y) was more similar to that of naturally growing B. alnoides (N) than that of the young-aged trees (P3y), which proved the considerable resilience of AMF to the establishment of the B. alnoides plantation. A set of at least five soil properties (available phosphorus, available nitrogen, organic matter, total nitrogen and silt content) was found to play a significant role in shaping the AMF communities. These results contribute to the understanding of the impacts of B. alnoides plantations on AMF diversity and composition. Such information is critical for the efficient planting and sustainable management of B. alnoides plantations.

Alterations in Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Community Along a Chronosequence of Teak (Tectona grandis) Plantations in Tropical Forests of China

“…In our study, a linear increase in AM colonization was observed over a chronosequence from 22 to 55 years of age, suggesting that the symbiotic relationship between AM fungi and host plants was enhanced. This result contradicts the report of Jing et al (2020), who discovered that the change in colonization showed a hump-shaped variation along with a chronosequence, peaking at an intermediate stage of stand age. At present, the change in the colonization rate was not clear over chronosequence.…”

“…Spore density in the rhizosphere soil increased linearly along the chronosequence of teak plantations (Figure 1). This result was consistent with the findings of the plantations of Robinia pseudoacacia and Betula alnoides (Sheng et al, 2017;Jing et al, 2020), which proved that spore abundance in rhizosphere soil was closely associated with the age of the host plant. Pearson correlation analysis showed that spore density was significantly related to soil properties (Supplementary Table 1), suggesting that the increase in spore density with a chronosequence of teak plantation could be mediated by soil parameters induced by stand age.…”

“…Similar results for the dominance of Glomus were observed in teak plantations in Thailand using different methods (Chaiyasen et al, 2014(Chaiyasen et al, , 2017. The Glomus was the most abundant genus reported in forest ecosystems (Chen et al, 2007;Lu et al, 2019;Jing et al, 2020;Ji et al, 2021), reclamation land (Ezeokoli et al, 2020), desert vegetative sites (Vasar et al, 2021), agroecosystems (Wang et al, 2020) and saline ecosystems (Sheng et al, 2019) indicating its wide adaptation to diverse ecosystems. Additionally, studies found that the AMV4.5NF/AMDGR primers favored the amplification of Glomeraceae sequences (Luo et al, 2020), which may also have resulted in the dominance of Glomeraceae and Glomus at the family and genus levels, respectively.…”

“…The AM fungal spores were considered to be resting structures that were involved in "long-term" survival (Jing et al, 2020). Spore density in the rhizosphere soil increased linearly along the chronosequence of teak plantations (Figure 1).…”

“…Tropical forests are one of the most abundant and complex terrestrial ecosystems and play a vital role in maintaining biodiversity and regulating the global climate (Jing et al, 2020). Soil is considered one of the most abundant microbial ecosystems on Earth (Gans et al, 2005).…”