Intercropping changed the soil microbial community composition but no significant effect on alpha diversity

Jiaying Liu; Weixi Zhang; Chao Teng; Zhongyi Pang; Yanhui Peng; Jian Qiu; Jiawei Lei; Xiaohua Su; Wenxu Zhu; Changjun Ding

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2024.1370996

Intercropping changed the soil microbial community composition but no significant effect on alpha diversity

Front Microbiol. 2024 Mar 20:15:1370996. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2024.1370996. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Jiaying Liu^#^{1

2}, Weixi Zhang^#^{2

3}, Chao Teng⁴, Zhongyi Pang⁵, Yanhui Peng⁵, Jian Qiu⁶, Jiawei Lei¹, Xiaohua Su^{2

3}, Wenxu Zhu¹, Changjun Ding^{2

3}

Affiliations

¹ College of Forestry, Shenyang Agricultural University, Shenyang, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Tree Genetics and Breeding, Research Institute of Forestry, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, China.
³ Key Laboratory of Tree Breeding and Cultivation of State Forestry Administration, Research Institute of Forestry, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, China.
⁴ Liaoning Non-Ferrous Geological Exploration and Research Institute Co., Ltd., Shenyang, China.
⁵ Xinmin Machinery Forest Farm, Xinmin, China.
⁶ State-owned Xinbin Manchu Autonomous County Douling Forest Farm, Fushun, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Introduction: Enhancing the planning of the forest-agricultural composite model and increasing the efficiency with which forest land is utilized could benefit from a thorough understanding of the impacts of intercropping between forests and agriculture on soil physicochemical properties and microbial communities.

Methods: Populus cathayana × candansis cv. Xinlin No.1 and Glycine max intercrop soils, along with their corresponding monocrops, were used in this study's llumina high-throughput sequencing analysis to determine the composition and diversity of soil bacterial and fungal communities.

Results: The findings indicated that intercropping considerably raised the soil's total phosphorus content and significantly lowered the soil's carbon nitrogen ratio when compared to poplar single cropping. Furthermore, the total carbon and nitrogen content of soil was increased and the soil pH was decreased. The sequencing results showed that intercropping had no significant effect on soil alpha diversity. Intercropping could increase the composition of fungal community and decrease the composition of bacterial community in poplar soil. At the phylum level, intercropping significantly increased the relative abundance of four dominant phyla, i.e., Patescibacteria, Proteobacteria, Patescibacteria and Deinococcus-Thermus. And the relative abundances of only two dominant phyla were significantly increased. It was found that soil total phosphorus and available phosphorus content had the strongest correlation with soil bacterial community diversity, and soil pH had the strongest correlation with soil fungal community diversity.

Discussion: The results of this study were similar to those of previous studies. This study can serve as a theoretical foundation for the development of a poplar and black bean-based forest-agricultural complex management system in the future.

Keywords: Glycine max; Populus cathayana × candansis cv. Xinlin No. 1; agroforestry intercropping; intercropping; soil bacterial and fungal communities.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This research was funded by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2021YFD2201201), the Basic Research Fund of CAF (Grant Nos. CAFYBB2023QB003 and CAFYBB2020SZ002); and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 32271843).