Nitrogen-fixing trees in mixed forest systems regulate the ecology of fungal community and phosphorus cycling

Arthur Prudêncio de A Pereira; Maiele C Santana; Maurício R G Zagatto; Carolina B Brandani; Jun-Tao Wang; Jay P Verma; Brajesh K Singh; Elke J B N Cardoso

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.143711

Nitrogen-fixing trees in mixed forest systems regulate the ecology of fungal community and phosphorus cycling

Sci Total Environ. 2021 Mar 1:758:143711. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.143711. Epub 2020 Nov 14.

Authors

Arthur Prudêncio de A Pereira¹, Maiele C Santana², Maurício R G Zagatto², Carolina B Brandani³, Jun-Tao Wang⁴, Jay P Verma⁵, Brajesh K Singh⁶, Elke J B N Cardoso²

Affiliations

¹ Federal University of Ceará, Soil Science Department, Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil. Electronic address: arthur.prudencio@usp.br.
² 'Luiz de Queiroz' College of Agriculture, University of São Paulo, Piracicaba, Brazil.
³ New Mexico State University, College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, Clayton Livestock Research Center, NM, United States.
⁴ Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia.
⁵ Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development, Banaras Hindu University, Uttar Pradesh, India.
⁶ Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia; Global Centre for Land-Based Innovation, Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia.

PMID: 33223162
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.143711

Abstract

The fungal community plays an important role in forest ecosystems via the provision of resources to plant nutrition and productivity. However, the ecology of the fungal network and its relationship with phosphorus (P) dynamics remain poorly understood in mixed forest plantations. Here, we analyzed the fungal community using the amplicon sequencing in plantations of pure Eucalyptus grandis, with (E + N) and without N fertilization (E), besides pure Acacia mangium (A), and in a consortium of E. grandis and A. mangium (E + A), at 27 and 39 months after planting. We analyzed chemical, physical and biochemical soil and litter attributes related to P cycling, and the fungal community structure to find out if mixed plantations can increase fungal connections and to identify their role in the P dynamics in the soil-litter system. Soil organic fraction (OF), phosphorus in OF, total-P and acid phosphatase activity were significantly higher in E + A and A treatments regardless of the sampling period. Total N and P, richness, and Shannon diversity of the fungi in the litter was significantly higher in the treatments E + A and A. The fungal community structure in litter differed between treatments and sampling periods, and E + A showed an intermediate structure between the two pure treatments (E) and (A). E + A correlated highly with P dynamics when evaluated by both Pearson and redundancy analyses, particularly in the litter layer. Co-occurrence networks of fungal taxa became simpler in pure E. grandis plantations, whereas mixed system (E + A) showed a more connected and complex network. Our findings provide novel evidence that mixed forest plantations promote positive responses in the fungal community connections, which are closely related to P availability in the system, prominently in the litter layer. This indicates that the litter layer represents a specific niche to improve nutrient cycling by fungi in mixed forest ecosystems.

Keywords: Forest soil and litter; Fungal ecology; Mixed forest systems; Phosphorus dynamics; Soil enzyme activity.

MeSH terms

Ecosystem
Forests
Mycobiome*
Nitrogen
Phosphorus
Soil
Soil Microbiology
Trees*

Substances

Soil
Phosphorus
Nitrogen