Abstract
Aims
Plant functional group (PFG) removal experiments are recognized as an effective way to explore the role of plant diversity and species traits in ecosystem functioning. To minimize soil physical disturbance in plant removal experiments, aboveground parts of targeted plant species are usually cut off without removing their roots from the soil. However, the potential effects of their remaining roots (partially as root litter) on soil nematode communities are still unclear.
Methods
We used a three-year PFG removal experiment in a Qinghai-Tibet alpine meadow and set up root-ingrowth mesh bags for one year where removal target plants’ roots existed only outside the mesh bags.
Results
We found that nematode communities outside the mesh bags had higher nematode channel ratio and lower channel index values, indicating that the root litter outside the mesh bags increased energy flux to bacterial-feeding nematodes over fungal-feeding nematodes. The relative abundance of plant-feeding nematodes was higher inside than outside the mesh bags, probably because of a higher ratio of living roots inside the mesh bags. Non-metric multidimensional scaling showed that the structure of nematode communities inside and outside of mesh bags was generally differentiated except for the no-removal control treatment.
Conclusions
We conclude that the remaining roots outside mesh bags could modify the relative abundance ratio of different nematode guilds and soil nematode community structures, suggesting legacy effects of target plants’ roots in PFG removal experiments.
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Data availability
Data are available on request from the authors.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Mr. Denis Mburu Njoroge for some valuable suggestions for this manuscript. We thank Lingyan Hu and Sihan Chen for maintaining the experiment. We also thank Prof. Shuijin Hu for his help in the experimental design and set-up. We are grateful to the Gansu Gannan Grassland Ecosystem National Observation and Research Station and Lanzhou University for providing the field experimental platform. Wang P was funded by a research fellowship granted by the Natural Science Foundation of China (32171646). Zuo J was funded by a research grant from Wuhan Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Y9559701).
Funding
Wang P was supported by a research fellowship granted by the Natural Science Foundation of China (32171646). Zuo J was funded by a research grant from Wuhan Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Y9559701).
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Wang P, Zhou X, Guo H set up the plant functional group removal experiment. Wang P, Zuo J, and Zheng Y conceived the nematode experiments and conducted soil sampling with help of TA Drost. Zheng Y, Huang L, Jiang X, Guo R collected and identified nematodes. Zheng Y and Zuo J analyzed the data. Zheng Y prepared the draft manuscript with extensive contributions by TA Drost; all authors checked the draft and approved the final manuscript.
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Zheng, Y., Huang, L., Jiang, X. et al. Impact of remaining roots on soil nematode communities in an aboveground plant functional group removal experiment. Plant Soil 498, 213–224 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-023-06429-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-023-06429-1