Effects of Hedysarum leguminous plants on soil bacterial communities in the Mu Us Desert, northwest China

Abstract

This study assessed the influence of rhizocompartment types (i.e., root, rhizosphere soil, root‐zone soil, and intershrub bulk soil) on the diversity of soil microbial communities under desert leguminous plant shrubs. Moreover, the influence and variations of soil physicochemical factors in interactions among leguminous plants, soil, and microbes were investigated. Both 16S rRNA high‐throughput genome sequencing and conventional soil physicochemical index determination were used to characterize both the bacterial diversity and soil physicochemical properties in the rhizocompartments of two Hedysarum species ( Hedysarum mongolicum and Hedysarum scoparium ) in the Mu Us Desert of China. All nutrient indices (except total phosphorus and available phosphorus) in rhizosphere soil were uniformly higher than those in both root‐zone soil and intershrub bulk soil ( p < .05). The bacterial community diversity in the root, undershrub soil (i.e., rhizosphere and root zone), and intershrub bulk soil also showed significant differences ( p < .05). The bacterial community in the root is mainly composed of Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Tenericutes, and Chloroflexi, among which bacteria of the Proteobacteria genus are dominant. Root endophyte and rhizosphere soil microbiomes were mainly influenced by soil nutrients, while bacterial communities in root‐zone soil and intershrub bulk soil were mainly influenced by soil pH and NH 4 + ‐N. The rhizocompartment types of desert leguminous plants impose a significant influence on the diversity of soil microbial communities. According to these findings, nitrogen‐fixing rhizobia can co‐exist with nonsymbiotic endophytes in the roots of desert leguminous plants. Moreover, plants have a hierarchical filtering and enriching effect on beneficial microbes in soil via rhizocompartments. Soil physicochemical factors have a significant influence on both the structure and composition of microbial communities in various rhizocompartments, which is derived from the interactions among leguminous plants, soil, and microbes.

Adaptation of rhizosphere bacterial communities of drought-resistant sugarcane varieties under different degrees of drought stress

“…In turn, plant roots directly affect the soil portion of the rhizosphere by releasing exudates such as sugars and organic acids, which are sources of nutrients and vitamins used by various bacteria and stimulate the development of microbial communities ( 55 ). Similarly, soil properties can affect root traits, resulting in variations in bacterial communities associated with the root system ( 56 , 57 ). Thus, we conclude that changes in root traits and soil nutrient accumulation in drought-stressed sugarcane varieties contribute to distinct bacterial community compositions, suggesting that ZZ6 may exhibit greater drought resistance than ZZ1 in response to these changes.…”

Effects of afforestation on soil fungi in rocky mountain areas of North China

“…The Bonferroni correction was used for all multiple comparisons. Before statistical analysis, the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test of normality and Levene's test of homogeneity of variance were performed on the data (Yan et al, 2018; Zhou et al, 2020). Through one‐way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and the least significant difference test, the soil properties (SOC, TN, TP, AN, NN, AK, AP, pH, clay, silt, sand, BD, and SWC), the fungal diversity index and the relative abundance of all fungi and functional groups were tested.…”

“…To elucidate the co‐occurrence network pattern of fungal communities and assess the structural dissimilarities among fungal communities in each plantation, we performed a Spearman correlation analysis on the species composition of the top 50 most abundant fungal genera. Specifically, we considered data points with a correlation coefficient exceeding 0.7 and a p ‐value <0.05 as significant and employed Gephi software to visualize the resulting network patterns (Zhou et al, 2020). All statistical analyses were performed using SPSS 20.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA).…”

Environmental filtering drives the establishment of the distinctive rhizosphere, bulk, and root nodule bacterial communities of Sophora davidii in hilly and gully regions of the Loess Plateau of China

“…It is well known that soil P availability affects and influences the microbial community in roots and soil (Ren et al, 2021). Some reports have shown that soil AP is significantly relevant to the bacterial community of S. davidii, indicating that AP may be an important factor affecting the diversity and composition of the bacterial community in the rhizosphere (Pande et al, 2017;Zhou et al, 2020). It has been found that soil microorganisms can transform the combined phosphorus in soil into water-soluble phosphorus, thus promoting the absorption of phosphorus by plants (He and Zhu, 1998) and shifting the rhizosphere bacterial microbiome (Lennon and Jones, 2011).…”