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Driving forces for recovery of forest vegetation after harvesting a subalpine oak forest in eastern Tibetan Plateau

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Abstract

Uncertainty regarding how subalpine forest ecosystems respond to tree harvesting hinders their sustainable management and conservation strategies. To investigate the impact of oak (Quercus aquifolioides Rehd. et Wils.) harvesting and stand recovery processes on soil microbial communities and understory vegetation on the eastern Tibetan Plateau, we sampled and quantified the microbial community structure and understory vegetation in three age classes (1 year, 10 years, and 20 years since tree logging) of harvested stands and an un-harvested reference (control) stand of subalpine oak forest. Our result showed logging significantly altered the edaphic properties (p < 0.001) and shifted microbial community structure (p < 0.05), increasing the abundances of the Actinobacteria and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) but decreasing fungi and general, gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. Post-harvest evolution increased the biomass of understory vegetation and reshaped its community. Fungi (18:1ω7c, 18:1ω9c) and gram-negative bacteria (18:2ω7c, cy19:0) abundances changed significantly (p < 0.01) after harvesting and during stand recovery, suggesting their potential use as indicators for post-harvest oak recovery. Structural equation modeling (SEqM) revealed that, via litter, residue, and edaphic properties, the recovery process indirectly promoted microbe abundance while the overstory vegetation regrowth inhibited the plant community’s biomass in the understory. Microbial communities only had a minor, direct effect on understory vegetation. Litter and edaphic factors played important roles in reshaping understory plant and soil microbial communities for post-harvest evolution.

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Acknowledgments

The authors also thank Dr. Mingrui Deng and Prof. Pinghan Liang for their help during the preparation of the manuscript. We also thank Charlesworth Author Services (http://www.cwauthors.com) for polishing language in this manuscript. We appreciate the helpful observations of the chief editor and two anonymous reviewers on a previous version of this article.

Funding

This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 31700544), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (grant number 2020YFE0203200), the Sichuan Sci & Tech Department (grant number 2020YFS29), the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) “Light of West China” Program (grant number 2016XBZG_XBQNXZ_B_005), the CAS Key Laboratory of Mountain Ecological Restoration and Bioresource Utilization & Ecological Restoration Biodiversity Conservation Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province Program (grant number kxysws1901), the CAS Research and Development of Scientific Instrument and Equipment Program (grant number YJKYYQ20190064), and the Youth Innovation Promotion Association CAS (grant number 2021372).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. China-Croatia “Belt and Road” Joint Laboratory on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services & CAS Key Laboratory of Mountain Ecological Restoration and Bioresource Utilization & Ecological Restoration Biodiversity Conservation Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences|, Chengdu, 610041, People’s Republic of China

    Qinli Xiong, Xiaojin Luo, Lin Zhang & Kaiwen Pan

  2. State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 10085, People’s Republic of China

    Qinli Xiong

  3. College of Life Sciences, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, 610065, People’s Republic of China

    Qinli Xiong & Xingjin He

  4. Research Group Plants and Ecosystems (PLECO), Department of Biology, University of Antwerp, 2610, Wilrijk, Belgium

    Lingjuan Li

  5. CAS Key Laboratory of Tropical Plant Resources and Sustainable Use, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Menglun, 666303, People’s Republic of China

    Chenggang Liu

  6. Department of Environmental Sciences, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, 610065, People’s Republic of China

    Hui Sun

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  1. Qinli Xiong
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All authors worked together to design this study. QX and LL collected the data and did the analysis. QX wrote the draft of this paper. All authors contributed substantially to modify and revise this paper.

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Correspondence to Qinli Xiong or Kaiwen Pan.

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Xiong, Q., Li, L., Luo, X. et al. Driving forces for recovery of forest vegetation after harvesting a subalpine oak forest in eastern Tibetan Plateau. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 67748–67763 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-15367-3

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