Effects of temporal and spatial scales on soil yeast communities in the peach orchard

Abstract

Shihezi Reclamation Area is located at the southern edge of the Junggar Basin, with natural, soil, and climatic conditions unique to the production of peaches. In turn, peach orchards have accumulated rich microbial resources. As an important taxon of soil fungi, the diversity and community structure changes of yeast in the soil of peach orchards on spatial and temporal scales are still unknown. Here, we aimed to investigate the changes in yeast diversity and community structure in non-rhizosphere and rhizosphere soils of peach trees of different ages in the peach orchard and the factors affecting them, as well as the changes in the yeast co-occurrence network in the peach orchard at spatial and temporal scales. High-through put sequencing results showed that a total of 114 yeast genera were detected in all soil samples, belonging to Ascomycota (60 genera) and Basidiomycota (54 genera). The most dominant genus, Cryptococcus, was present in greater than 10% abundance in each sample. Overall, the differences in yeast diversity between non-rhizosphere and rhizosphere soil of peach trees at 3, 8 and 15 years were not significant. Principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) showed that differences in yeast community structure were more pronounced at the temporal scale compared to the spatial scale. The results of soil physical and chemical analysis showed that the 15-year-old peach rhizosphere soil had the lowest pH, while the OM, TN, and TP contents increased significantly. Redundancy analysis showed that soil pH and CO were key factors contributing to changes in soil yeast community structure in the peach orchard at both spatial and temporal scales. The results of co-occurrence network analysis showed that the peach orchard soil yeast network showed synergistic effects as a whole, and the degree of interactions and connection tightness of the 15-year-old peach orchard soil yeast network were significantly higher than the 3- and 8-year-old ones on the time scale. The results reveal the distribution pattern and mechanism of action of yeast communities in peach orchard soils, which can help to develop effective soil management strategies and improve the stability of soil microecology, thus promoting crop growth.

Keywords: co-occurrence network; high-throughput sequencing; orchard soil; spatio-temporal scales; yeast community.