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Microbial growth rate measurements reveal that land-use abandonment promotes a fungal dominance of SOM decomposition in grazed Mediterranean ecosystems

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Abstract

The present study investigated the effects of land-use abandonment on the soil decomposer community of two grazed Mediterranean ecosystems (an annual grassland with scattered holm oaks and a low-density shrubland). To test the influence of grazing abandonment, a set of plots within each site were fenced and kept undisturbed during 4–5 years, during which above-ground plant community structure was monitored. After that, soil samples were collected from grazed and abandoned plots corresponding to the three different soil conditions: away from (“grass”) and below tree canopies (“oak”) within the annual grassland, and from the shrubland (“shrub”). Soil samples were split into two different layers (0–5 and 5–15 cm) and then analyzed for saprotrophic fungal (acetate into ergosterol incorporation) and bacterial (leucine incorporation) growth rates. Ergosterol content (as a fungal biomass estimator) and a standard set of soil chemistry variables were also measured. After 5 years of grazing exclusion, saprotrophic fungal growth rate clearly increased in both grass and oak surface layers whereas bacterial growth rate was not altered. This translated into significantly higher fungal-to-bacterial (F/B) growth rate ratios within the ungrazed plots. Similar trends were observed for the shrub soils after 4 years of exclusion. On the contrary, abandonment of grazing had negligible effects on the ergosterol content, as well as on the soil chemical variables (soil organic carbon, total N, C/N ratio, and pH), in all the three soil conditions assessed. These results indicated a shift toward a more fungal-dominated decomposer activity in soils following cessation of grazing and highlighted the sensitivity of the microbial growth rate parameters to changes associated with land use. Moreover, there were evidences of a faster fungal biomass turnover in the ungrazed plots, which would reflect an accelerated, though not bigger, fungal channel in soil organic matter mineralization.

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Acknowledgments

We want to thank Paulo and CEAM researchers Arnaud Carrara and Cristina Gimeno for their help during field sampling. This work was partially supported by a COST STSM fellowship and funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Agricultura (INIA, Balangeis) and Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (VULCA; GRACCIE research net). JR was supported by a Swedish Research Council (VR) postdoctoral fellowship.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departament de Biologia Vegetal, Facultat de Biologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Diagonal 645, 08028, Barcelona, Spain

    Luis Lopez-Sangil

  2. Centre Tecnològic Forestal de Catalunya (CTFC), Pujada del Seminari s/n, 25280, Solsona, Spain

    Luis Lopez-Sangil & Pere Casals

  3. Department of Microbial Ecology, Lund University, Ecology Building, Sölvegatan 37, 223 62, Sweden

    Johannes Rousk & Håkan Wallander

  4. School of the Environment, Natural Resources & Geography, Bangor University, Gwynedd, LL57 2UW, UK

    Johannes Rousk

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  1. Luis Lopez-Sangil
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Correspondence to Luis Lopez-Sangil.

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Lopez-Sangil, L., Rousk, J., Wallander, H. et al. Microbial growth rate measurements reveal that land-use abandonment promotes a fungal dominance of SOM decomposition in grazed Mediterranean ecosystems. Biol Fertil Soils 47, 129–138 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00374-010-0510-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00374-010-0510-8

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