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Understory vegetation restoration improves soil physicochemical properties, enzymatic activity, and changes diazotrophic communities in Cunninghamia lanceolata plantations but depends on site history

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Abstract

Aims

Elucidating the mechanisms of understory vegetation response to forest management practices is critical to the impact of soil nutrient cycling. However, as common management practices, how thinning leading to the restoration of understory vegetation affects soil biochemical properties and microbial-mediated belowground processes and their main drivers remains unclear.

Methods

We investigated the differences of 16 S rRNA, nifH gene abundance, diversity and composition of vegetation restoration using a 5-year in situ experiment including Pinus massoniana-dominated forests (CK), virgin Cunninghamia lanceolata plantations (CF) and C. lanceolata plantations that have undergone a cycle of cutting and replanting (CS) in southern China.

Results

We found that understory vegetation restoration improved some soil physicochemical properties (e.g., AP) and enzyme activity. The abundance of nifH were higher in CF than in CK or CS. As a result of vegetation restoration, α-diversity of soil diazotrophic communities significantly increased in CF. These communities were clustered into different groups based on the forest type. The number of potential keystone species of diazotrophs was highest in CF, including several beneficial taxa (e.g., Paraburkholderia and Pelomonas). Most of the bacterial functional groups related to soil nitrogen cycling were also significantly elevated in CF, such as nitrogen fixers. Partial least squares path modelling (PLS-PM) further showed that soil diazotrophic communities were clearly shaped by soil nutrient content.

Conclusions

Overall, these results highlight the effects of vegetation restoration on soil diazotrophic communities and clarify the contributions of potential for improving edaphic conditions in areas of southern China with acidic red soils.

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Data availability

The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Dr. Joseph Elliot at the University of Kansas for her assistance with English language and grammatical editing of the manuscript.

Funding

This study was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2021YFD2201304-03), the Zhejiang Science and Technology Major Program on Agricultural New Variety Breeding (No. 2021C02070-10), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 32201542), and the Scientific Development and Research Foundation of Zhejiang A&F University (No. 2022LFR054).

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  1. Kai Ding and Yuting Zhang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Subtropical Silviculture, School of Forestry & Bio-Technology, Zhejiang A&F University, 666# Wusu Street, Lin’an, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, 311300, People’s Republic of China

    Kai Ding, Yuting Zhang, Anna Yang, Yiman Zhang, Meng Lu, Siyu Ge, Junhong Zhang & Zaikang Tong

  2. Kaihua Forestry Farm, Zhejiang, Kaihua, 324300, People’s Republic of China

    Yongbin Qiu

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Contributions

KD, YTZ, JHZ and ZKT conceived the study and planned the work. KD and YTZ analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript. ANY, YMZ, ML, SYG and YBQ prepared the dataset. JHZ and ZKT revised the manuscript. All authors approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Junhong Zhang or Zaikang Tong.

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Ding, K., Zhang, Y., Yang, A. et al. Understory vegetation restoration improves soil physicochemical properties, enzymatic activity, and changes diazotrophic communities in Cunninghamia lanceolata plantations but depends on site history. Plant Soil 492, 605–623 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-023-06205-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-023-06205-1

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