Analyses of soil microbial community compositions and functional genes reveal potential consequences of natural forest succession

Abstract

The succession of microbial community structure and function is a central ecological topic, as microbes drive the Earth’s biogeochemical cycles. To elucidate the response and mechanistic underpinnings of soil microbial community structure and metabolic potential relevant to natural forest succession, we compared soil microbial communities from three adjacent natural forests: a coniferous forest (CF), a mixed broadleaf forest (MBF) and a deciduous broadleaf forest (DBF) on Shennongjia Mountain in central China. In contrary to plant communities, the microbial taxonomic diversity of the DBF was significantly (P < 0.05) higher than those of CF and MBF, rendering their microbial community compositions markedly different. Consistently, microbial functional diversity was also highest in the DBF. Furthermore, a network analysis of microbial carbon and nitrogen cycling genes showed the network for the DBF samples was relatively large and tight, revealing strong couplings between microbes. Soil temperature, reflective of climate regimes, was important in shaping microbial communities at both taxonomic and functional gene levels. As a first glimpse of both the taxonomic and functional compositions of soil microbial communities, our results suggest that microbial community structure and function potentials will be altered by future environmental changes, which have implications for forest succession.

Fine Spatial Scale Variation of Soil Microbial Communities under European Beech and Norway Spruce

“…Although numerous studies on the effects of plants on soil microorganisms are available, they rarely focus on microbial communities under trees (Thoms et al, 2010; Urbanová et al, 2015; Uroz et al, 2016). Surveys on effects of pure tree species in a forest stand as well as those focusing on vegetation gradients or chronosequences contributed to the current overall picture concerning tree influences on soil microbial communities (e.g., Cong et al, 2015; Zeng et al, 2016). …”

Contribution of soil respiration to the global carbon equation

“…Major enzymes in soils include amylase, ␤-glucosidase, cellulase, chitinase, dehydrogenase, phosphatase, protease, and urease and are produced by various microbes (Dick and Tabatabai, 1984;Gupta et al, 1993;Makoi and Ndakidemi, 2008). Although new DNA sequencing technologies have made it possible to investigate microbial community composition (Torsvik and Øvreås, 2002;Cong et al, 2015;Hartmann et al, 2015;Pitombo et al, 2015), we have limited knowledge of the details of soil enzymes, such as their amounts, types, distribution, and efficiency, and little is known of individual microbial species and the corresponding enzyme(s) produced. The importance of soil enzymes to ecosystem functions, including soil respiration, has been reviewed by Makoi and Ndakidemi (2008).…”

Environmental Predictors of Indole Acetic Acid Producing Rhizobacteria at Fly Ash Dumps: Nature-Based Solution for Sustainable Restoration

“…In fact, the specific environmental stress selects a particular functional group of bacteria at the site (Aislabie et al, 2004). However, limited information is available on how plant-microbe interactions affect the soil geochemical traits and in turn influence the microbial functional diversity (Cong et al, 2015). In contrast with fly ash, the garden sample lacked rhizosphere effect where periodic mixing of soil, the addition of fertilizer and frequent irrigation were common.…”