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Plant Biomass and Soil Nutrients Mainly Explain the Variation of Soil Microbial Communities During Secondary Succession on the Loess Plateau

  • Soil Microbiology
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Abstract

Soil microorganisms play an important role in the circulation of materials and nutrients between plants and soil ecosystems, but the drivers of microbial community composition and diversity remain uncertain in different vegetation restoration patterns. We studied soil physicochemical properties (i.e., soil moisture, bulk density, pH, soil nutrients, available nutrients), plant characteristics (i.e., Shannon index [HPlant] and Richness index [SPlant], litter biomass [LB], and fine root biomass [FRB]), and microbial variables (biomass, enzyme activity, diversity, and composition of bacterial and fungal communities) in different plant succession patterns (Robinia pseudoacacia [MF], Caragana korshinskii [SF], and grassland [GL]) on the Loess Plateau. The herb communities, soil microbial biomass, and enzyme activities were strongly affected by vegetation restoration, and soil bacterial and fungal communities were significantly different from each other at the sites. Correlation analysis showed that LB and FRB were significantly positively correlated with the Chao index of soil bacteria, soil microbial biomass, enzyme activities, Proteobacteria, Zygomycota, and Cercozoa, while negatively correlated with Actinobacteria and Basidiomycota. In addition, soil water content (SW), pH, and nutrients have important effects on the bacterial and fungal diversities, as well as Acidobacteria, Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Nitrospirae, Zygomycota, and microbial biomass. Furthermore, plant characteristics and soil properties modulated the composition and diversity of soil microorganisms, respectively. Overall, the relative contribution of vegetation and soil to the diversity and composition of soil bacterial and fungal communities illustrated that plant characteristics and soil properties may synergistically modulate soil microbial communities, and the composition and diversity of soil bacterial and fungal communities mainly depend on plant biomass and soil nutrients.

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Data Availability

Some or all data, models, or code generated or used during the study are available from the corresponding author by request.

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Funding

Forest and Grass Technology Innovation Development and Research Project of the State Forestry and Grassland Administration (2020132111), Key project of Shaanxi Provincial Natural Science Foundation (2018JZ4002) and Shaanxi Engineering Research Center of Circular Agriculture (2019HBGC-13) financially supported this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Agronomy, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Xianyang, 712100, Shaanxi, China

    Miao-ping Xu, Jia-yi Wang, Yu-fan Zhu, Xin-hui Han, Cheng-jie Ren & Gai-he Yang

  2. The Research Center of Recycle Agricultural Engineering and Technology of Shaanxi Province, Yangling, Xianyang, 712100, Shaanxi, China

    Miao-ping Xu, Jia-yi Wang, Yu-fan Zhu, Xin-hui Han, Cheng-jie Ren & Gai-he Yang

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  1. Miao-ping Xu
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  2. Jia-yi Wang
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  4. Xin-hui Han
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Contributions

MPX, XHH and JYW conceived and designed the experiments; MPX and CJR performed the experiments and processed the samples; MPX wrote a first version of the manuscript, and YFZ and GHY substantially contributed to the last version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Xin-hui Han.

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Xu, Mp., Wang, Jy., Zhu, Yf. et al. Plant Biomass and Soil Nutrients Mainly Explain the Variation of Soil Microbial Communities During Secondary Succession on the Loess Plateau. Microb Ecol 83, 114–126 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-021-01740-9

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