Effects of grassland afforestation on structure and function of soil bacterial and fungal communities

Kaibo Wang; Yongwang Zhang; Zhuangsheng Tang; Zhouping Shangguan; Fan Chang; Feng'an Jia; Yiping Chen; Xinhua He; Weiyu Shi; Lei Deng

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.04.259

Effects of grassland afforestation on structure and function of soil bacterial and fungal communities

Sci Total Environ. 2019 Aug 1:676:396-406. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.04.259. Epub 2019 Apr 22.

Authors

Kaibo Wang¹, Yongwang Zhang², Zhuangsheng Tang³, Zhouping Shangguan⁴, Fan Chang⁵, Feng'an Jia⁵, Yiping Chen⁶, Xinhua He⁷, Weiyu Shi⁸, Lei Deng⁹

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710075, China; State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming on the Loess Plateau, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China.
² College of Life Sciences, Yan'an University, Yan'an, Shaanxi 716000, China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming on the Loess Plateau, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China.
⁴ Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Ministry of Water Resources, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China.
⁵ Microbial Metabolism Research Center, Microbiology Institute of Shaanxi, Xi'an 710043, China.
⁶ State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710075, China.
⁷ College of Natural Resources and Environment, Southwest University, Beibei, Chongqing 400715, China; School of Biological Sciences, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia.
⁸ Chongqing Engineering Research Center for Remote Sensing Big Data Application, School of Geographical Sciences, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China. Electronic address: shiweiyu@swu.edu.cn.
⁹ State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming on the Loess Plateau, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China; Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Ministry of Water Resources, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China. Electronic address: leideng@ms.iswc.ac.cn.

PMID: 31048170
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.04.259

Abstract

Grassland afforestation strongly influences the structure and function of soil microorganisms. Yet the mechanisms of how afforestation could simultaneously alter both the soil fungal and bacterial communities and its implications for ecosystem management are poorly understood, especially in nitrogen-limited ecosystems. Using high-throughput sequencing of 16S rRNA and ITS rRNA genes, the present study investigated the changes in soil properties and soil microorganisms after afforestation of natural grasslands with Chinese pine (Pinus tabuliformis) on the Loess Plateau in China. Results showed that soil bacterial diversity had no significant differences among the grassland (GL), forest-grassland transition zone (TZ), and forestland (FL), while soil fungal diversity in the GL was significantly higher than that in the FL and TZ (P < 0.05). The proportion of shared OTUs in the soil bacterial community was higher than that in the soil fungal community among the three land use types. The dominant bacterial phylum shifted from Proteobacteria to Actinobacteria, while the dominant fungal phylum shifted from Ascomycota to Basidiomycota after the GL conversion to the FL. The functional groups of ECM fungi increased significantly while biotrophic fungi decreased significantly after grassland afforestation. Both the soil bacterial and fungal communities in the TZ showed great similarity with those in the FL. In addition, among all examined soil properties, soil nitrogen (N) showed a more significant effect on the soil microbial communities. The reduction of soil N after grassland afforestation resulted in both the structure and function changes in soil microbial communities. Our results demonstrated simultaneously differential changes in the composition and diversity of both soil bacterial and fungal communities after afforestation from grasslands to planted forests.

Keywords: Afforestation; Forest–grassland transition zone; Grassland; Soil bacteria; Soil fungi; Soil nitrogen.

MeSH terms

China
Ecosystem
Environmental Monitoring*
Forests*
Grassland*
Soil / chemistry
Soil Microbiology*

Substances

Soil