Correlations between dominant vegetation type and composition and diversity of soil bacterial communities in a subtropical forest

Abstract

Single and mixed vegetation types have significant effects on soil parameters and the composition and diversity of soil bacterial community. To understand the influence of different vegetation types on the structure of soil bacterial community across soil depth in a subtropical forest, we assessed the relative abundance of edaphic bacterial community and soil parameters, including pH, cation exchange capacity (CEC), and dissolved organic C in Daiyun Mountain Nature Reserve in Fujian Province, southeastern China. The study area constitutes pine coniferous forest (CF) of Pinus taiwanensis Hayata, broad‐leaved forest (BF) of Castanopsis fabri Hance, and a mixed forest comprising CF and BF (MF). Quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and Illumina sequencing of 16S ribosomal DNA were used to analyze the abundance, diversity, and composition of soil bacteria. The results showed that the pH, CEC, and diversity of tree species are all associated with the composition of bacterial community in the soil. It was found that CEC, soluble organic N, and pH largely affected the structure of soil bacterial community in A horizon, whereas CEC, moisture content, and organic P affected the structure of soil bacterial community in B horizon. We found that the dominant taxa in the CF and BF were Proteobacteria and Acidobacteria, respectively. The results of both mental and random forest analyses displayed groups according to vegetation types, indicating that the bacterial communities in the research site were significantly influenced by vegetation types in subtropical forests. The study highlights the ecological effects of forest management and elucidates the differences in the functional structure of soil bacterial communities under different vegetation types and soil depths.

Assessment of Soil Quality in the Transformation from Pure Chinese Fir Plantation to Mixed Broad-Leaved and Cunninghamia lanceolata Plantation in Subtropical China

“…Therefore, the quality of forest soils is highly related to factors such as tree species' composition, stand structure, and tree species' characteristics. Similarly, stand growth status can also reflect the levels of soil quality, resulting in significant variations in the soil quality of different stands [63][64][65]. Our findings align with the results reported from previous studies that the soil quality is significantly higher in mixed forests than in pure forests [66].…”

Whole-Genome Sequencing and Metagenomics Reveals Diversity and Prevalence of Soil Listeria spp. in the Nantahala National Forest

“…The soil factors affecting soil bacterial community structure are site-speci c and different types of ecosystems usually support unique microbial communities [88]. Similar to our ndings, Mg content was identi ed as a signi cant factor in uencing soil bacterial community composition in other international forest regions [89, 90], while cation exchange capacity was also found to be signi cantly correlated with soil bacterial community diversity in other international forest locations [91][92][93].…”