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Responses of soil bacterial communities, enzyme activities, and nutrients to agricultural-to-natural ecosystem conversion in the Loess Plateau, China

  • Soils, Sec 5 • Soil and Landscape Ecology • Research Article
  • Published:
Journal of Soils and Sediments Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

Soil microbial communities play critical function during nutrient cycling. However, with the increasing nutrient input into terrestrial ecosystems from human activities, the responses of soil microorganisms to the aboveground vegetation across agricultural-to-natural succession stages are still poorly understand. The aim of this study was to evaluate the changes of soil microbial communities in three typical succession stages (the cropland, the grassland, and the brushland, respectively).

Materials and methods

A field experiment was carried out in an ecological restoration region. Soil samples were collected from three succession stages (the cropland, the grassland, and the brushland) based on their well-dated successional chronosequence in July 2016. Illumina MiSeq sequencing was used to identify the bacterial community structures. The responses of soil bacterial communities and its relationships with soil physicochemical properties and enzyme activities were assessed.

Results and discussion

The results showed that soil nutrients (soil organic carbon (SOC), total N, and NH4+) and enzyme activities (β-1,4-glucosidase and phosphatase) were significantly increased across the conversion from agricultural to natural ecosystem, and the enzyme activities were significantly affected by SOC and total N. It indicated that vegetation restoration greatly improved soil quality and nutrient cycling rates mediated by microbial metabolisms. Furthermore, there were no changes in soil bacterial community structures during the three vegetation succession stages, which implied the stability and adaption of microbial communities under the vegetation succession in semiarid climate. It should be noted that Firmicutes taxa were more sensitive than other taxa during natural vegetation recovery. Structural equation model (SEM) revealed that soil nutrients (soil organic matter (SOM) and total P), element stoichiometry (SOC:total P), and extracellular enzyme activities (urease and alkaline phosphatase) were dominant factors to shape the relative abundance of Firmicutes.

Conclusions

Firmicutes can be considered as bio-indicators to monitor soil quality and nutrient turnover during natural vegetation recovery. This study presents better understanding about the connections among soil nutrient cycling, enzyme activities, and soil bacterial communities during vegetation natural restoration, especially in typical ecological critical zone.

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Funding

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Sciences Foundation of China (41571314 and 41201226), CAS “Light of West China” Program (XAB2016A03), and State Key Research & Development Plan Project (2017YFC0504504).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming on the Loess Plateau, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, 712100, People’s Republic of China

    Yongxing Cui, Linchuan Fang, Xia Wang, Yanjiang Zhang & Xingchang Zhang

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, People’s Republic of China

    Yongxing Cui & Xia Wang

  3. Agriculture Production and Research Division, Department of Fisheries and Land Resources, Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Corner Brook, NL, A2H 6J8, Canada

    Xiaobin Guo

  4. State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi’an, Shaanxi, 710061, People’s Republic of China

    Yunqiang Wang

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  1. Yongxing Cui
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  2. Linchuan Fang
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  3. Xiaobin Guo
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  4. Xia Wang
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  5. Yunqiang Wang
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Correspondence to Linchuan Fang.

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Responsible editor: Yuan Ge

Electronic Supplementary Material

The supplementary information includes additional tables and figures showing the results of Adonis analysis, the correlations among soil physicochemical properties, soil enzyme activities, and bacterial communities and the similarity of the bacterial community from the different sampling areas.

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Cui, Y., Fang, L., Guo, X. et al. Responses of soil bacterial communities, enzyme activities, and nutrients to agricultural-to-natural ecosystem conversion in the Loess Plateau, China. J Soils Sediments 19, 1427–1440 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-018-2110-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-018-2110-4

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