Natural restoration alters soil microbial community structure, but has contrasting effects on the diversity of bacterial and fungal assemblages in salinized grasslands

Weina Wang; Huanjun Liu; Lifei Chen; Kadri Koorem; Yingchao Hu; Liang-Jun Hu

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.164726

Natural restoration alters soil microbial community structure, but has contrasting effects on the diversity of bacterial and fungal assemblages in salinized grasslands

Sci Total Environ. 2023 Sep 15:891:164726. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.164726. Epub 2023 Jun 7.

Authors

Weina Wang¹, Huanjun Liu², Lifei Chen³, Kadri Koorem⁴, Yingchao Hu⁵, Liang-Jun Hu⁶

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Vegetation Ecology Science of the Chinese Ministry of Education, Institute of Grassland Science, Jilin Songnen Grassland Ecosystem National Observation and Research Station, Northeast Normal University, Changchun 130024, China; Department of Botany, Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Tartu, Tartu 50409, Estonia.
² Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130111, China.
³ College of Forestry and Grassland, Jilin Agricultural University, Changchun 130117, China.
⁴ Department of Botany, Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Tartu, Tartu 50409, Estonia.
⁵ Key Laboratory of Vegetation Ecology Science of the Chinese Ministry of Education, Institute of Grassland Science, Jilin Songnen Grassland Ecosystem National Observation and Research Station, Northeast Normal University, Changchun 130024, China.
⁶ Key Laboratory of Vegetation Ecology Science of the Chinese Ministry of Education, Institute of Grassland Science, Jilin Songnen Grassland Ecosystem National Observation and Research Station, Northeast Normal University, Changchun 130024, China. Electronic address: hulj068@nenu.edu.cn.

PMID: 37290641
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.164726

Abstract

Natural restoration has often been considered an effective measure for rehabilitating degraded ecosystems. However, its impact on the structure and diversity of soil microbial communities, particularly within a salinized grassland during its restoration succession, remains unclear. In this study, we examined the effects of natural restoration on the Shannon-Wiener diversity index, Operational Taxonomic Units (OTU) richness, and structure of the soil microbial community of a sodic-saline grassland in China using high-throughput amplicon sequencing data from representative successional chronosequences. Our results indicated that natural restoration resulted in a significant mitigation of the grassland salinization (pH from 9.31 to 8.32 and electrical conductivity from 393.33 to 136.67 μs·cm^-1) and a significant alteration of the soil microbial community structure of the grassland (p < 0.01). However, the effects of natural recovery differed in terms of the abundance and diversity of bacteria and fungi. For example, the relative abundance of the bacterial phyla Acidobacteria increased by 116.45 % in the topsoil and 339.03 % in the subsoil, while that of the fungal phyla Ascomycota decreased by 8.86 % in the topsoil and 30.18 % in the subsoil. There was no significant effect of restoration on bacterial diversity, but fungal diversity increased by 15.02 % in the Shannon-Wiener index and 62.20 % in the OTU richness in the topsoil. Model-selection analysis further corroborated that the alteration of the soil microbial structure by natural restoration may be due to the fact that the bacteria could adapt to the alleviated salinized grassland soil and the fungi could adapt to the improved soil fertility of the grasslands. Overall, our results contribute to an in-depth understanding of the impacts of natural restoration on soil microbial diversity and community structure in salinized grasslands during the long-term successional course. This may also help to apply natural restoration as a greener practice option for managing degraded ecosystems.

Keywords: Community structure; Grassland salinization; Natural restoration succession; Richness; Soil microbial diversity; Soil pH.

MeSH terms

Bacteria
Grassland
Microbiota*
Soil Microbiology
Soil* / chemistry

Substances

Soil