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Moderate disturbance increases the PLFA diversity and biomass of the microbial community in biocrusts in the Loess Plateau region of China

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Abstract

Aims

Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) play key roles in dryland ecosystems. Examining the effects of different intensities of disturbance on biocrusts and exploring appropriate disturbance levels can provide important information about ecosystem processes and services in drylands.

Methods

Five disturbance intensities ranging from 10% to 50% based on the percentage of broken biocrusts were implemented to examine the effects of simulated goat trampling on microbial communities; microbial community structure was measured with the phospholipid fatty acid method.

Results

The effects of disturbance on the biocrusts were closely related to disturbance intensity. Surprisingly, moderate disturbance had a weak effect on total biocrust coverage but increased cyanobacterial coverage by 2 ~ 3%. Consequently, there was an increase in total N, a reduction in the C/N ratio and improvements in soil moisture, and these effects led to 13 ~ 21% and 5 ~ 6% increases in microbial biomass and diversity, respectively, compared with those in undisturbed biocrusts. However, high-intensity disturbance substantially reduced biocrust coverage and microbial abundance.

Conclusions

The study supports the intermediate disturbance hypothesis and suggests that moderate disturbance has positive effects on the microbial communities of biocrusts. These findings provide vital information for the ecological management of drylands.

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Acknowledgments

The study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41830758 and 41571268) and the National Key Research and Development Program (Grant No. 2017YFC0506503). We also want to express our gratitude to the anonymous reviewers and editors for their constructive comments and suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming on the Loess Plateau, Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, 712100, Shaanxi, China

    Tianli Bao, Liqian Gao, Shanshan Wang, Xueqin Yang, Wei Ren & Yunge Zhao

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Tianli Bao, Shanshan Wang & Wei Ren

  3. Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Ministry of Water Resources, Yangling, 712100, Shaanxi, China

    Yunge Zhao

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  1. Tianli Bao
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Correspondence to Yunge Zhao.

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Bao, T., Gao, L., Wang, S. et al. Moderate disturbance increases the PLFA diversity and biomass of the microbial community in biocrusts in the Loess Plateau region of China. Plant Soil 451, 499–513 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-020-04554-9

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