Impacts of 10 Years of Elevated CO2 and Warming on Soil Fungal Diversity and Network Complexity in a Chinese Paddy Field

Abstract

Climatic change conditions (elevated CO₂ and warming) have been known to threaten agricultural sustainability and grain yield. Soil fungi play an important role in maintaining agroecosystem functions. However, little is known about the responses of fungal community in paddy field to elevated CO₂ and warming. Herein, using internal transcribed spacer (ITS) gene amplicon sequencing and co-occurrence network methods, the responses of soil fungal community to factorial combinations of elevated CO₂ (550 ppm), and canopy warming (+2 °C) were explored in an open-air field experiment for 10 years. Elevated CO₂ significantly increased the operational taxonomic unit (OTU) richness and Shannon diversity of fungal communities in both rice rhizosphere and bulk soils, whereas the relative abundances of Ascomycota and Basidiomycota were significantly decreased and increased under elevated CO₂, respectively. Co-occurrence network analysis showed that elevated CO₂, warming, and their combination increased the network complexity and negative correlation of the fungal community in rhizosphere and bulk soils, suggesting that these factors enhanced the competition of microbial species. Warming resulted in a more complex network structure by altering topological roles and increasing the numbers of key fungal nodes. Principal coordinate analysis indicated that rice growth stages rather than elevated CO₂ and warming altered soil fungal communities. Specifically, the changes in diversity and network complexity were greater at the heading and ripening stages than at the tillering stage. Furthermore, elevated CO₂ and warming significantly increased the relative abundances of pathotrophic fungi and reduced those of symbiotrophic fungi in both rhizosphere and bulk soils. Overall, the results indicate that long-term CO₂ exposure and warming enhance the complexity and stability of soil fungal community, potentially threatening crop health and soil functions through adverse effects on fungal community functions.

Keywords: Climate change; Fungal diversity; Network complexity; Paddy field; Rhizosphere.