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The response of soil nematode fauna to climate drying and warming in Stipa breviflora desert steppe in Inner Mongolia, China

  • Soils, Sec 5 • Soil and Landscape Ecology • Research Article
  • Published:
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Abstract

Purpose

Global warming and drying are important environmental issues. Our study aimed to investigate how warming and precipitation changes affect soil nematode communities in an Inner Mongolian desert steppe for 10 years.

Materials and methods

Soil nematodes were extracted by the Baermann funnel method. Changes in the nematode communities under artificial warming and precipitation conditions were assayed by analyzing their abundance and ecological indices.

Results and discussion

Soil nematode abundance decreased significantly by 37.47% under artificial warming; however, there was no significant effect of warming on the nematode community diversity. As for precipitation experiment, the decreased precipitation eliminated some of non-dominant nematode genera, such as Pratylenchus, Helicotylenchus, and Aphelenchus. It caused not only a significant decrease (37.65%) in soil nematode abundance but also a more structured food web and shorter food chain. However, nematode faunal analysis indicated that the soil nematode community was more resistant to drought. Both soil nematode abundance and community diversity increased significantly as increase of precipitation. In particular, the abundance of plant parasitic nematodes increased by 46.69%, which may due to the increase in total nitrogen content in soil. Nematode faunal analysis showed that increased precipitation improved soil environment for the nematodes, and increased food web connectivity and food chain length. However, bacterivorous nematode abundance decreased by 74.39%, and the decomposition pathway of the nematode community had switched from the bacterial channel to the fungal channel.

Conclusions

In the Inner Mongolian steppe, both climate drying and warming had negative impacts on soil nematode abundance; however, only drying affected nematode community diversity and food web structure and slowly changed nematode ecological functions. Increased precipitation may aid soil nematode community recovery.

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Abbreviations

IPCC:

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

+T:

Warming treatment

T.CK:

Temperature control;

+W:

Water addition treatment

W:

Water reduction treatment

W.CK:

Water control

BF:

Bacterivores nematode

FF:

Fungivores nematode

PP:

Plant parasites nematode

OP:

Omnivores/predators nematode

H:

Shannon-Wiener diversity index

J:

Evenness index

SR:

Margalef richness index

(1 - λ):

Simpson’s index of diversity

NCR:

Nematode channel ratio

MI:

Maturity index

PPI:

Plant parasite index

EI:

Enrichment index

SI:

Structure index

CI:

Channel index

BI:

Basal index

c-p:

Colonizer-persister scale value

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Funding

The study was supported by grants from National Natural Science Foundation of China (31770499, 31100330, 31500365, 31560140, 31270502, 41403082, 31300386), Tianjin Science and Technology Support Program (15ZCZDSF00410), Natural Science Foundation of Tianjin city (12JCYBJC19700), National Key R&D Program of China (2016YFC0500504) and the National Science Foundation of Tianjin (18JCYBJC96500).

Author information

Author notes

  1. Guogang Zhang and Xin Sui contributed equally to this work and should be regarded as co-first authors

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Life Sciences, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, 300387, China

    Guogang Zhang, Xin Sui & Yang Li

  2. Tianjin Key Laboratory of Animal and Plant Resistance, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, 300387, China

    Guogang Zhang, Xin Sui & Yang Li

  3. Key laboratory of water resource and environment, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, 300387, China

    Meiqing Jia

  4. College of Grassland, Resources and Environment, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, 010019, China

    Zhongwu Wang & Guodong Han

  5. Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Grassland Resources Education, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, 010019, China

    Zhongwu Wang & Guodong Han

  6. Institute of Agricultural environment and resource, Jilin Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Changchun, 130033, China

    Lichun Wang

Authors
  1. Guogang Zhang
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  2. Xin Sui
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  4. Meiqing Jia
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Correspondence to Meiqing Jia or Lichun Wang.

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Zhang, G., Sui, X., Li, Y. et al. The response of soil nematode fauna to climate drying and warming in Stipa breviflora desert steppe in Inner Mongolia, China. J Soils Sediments 20, 2166–2180 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-019-02555-5

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