Fungal Communities in Rhizosphere Soil under Conservation Tillage Shift in Response to Plant Growth

Abstract

Conservation tillage is an extensively used agricultural practice in northern China that alters soil texture and nutrient conditions, causing changes in the soil microbial community. However, how conservation tillage affects rhizosphere and bulk soil fungal communities during plant growth remains unclear. The present study investigated the effect of long-term (6 years) conservation (chisel plow, zero) and conventional (plow) tillage during wheat growth on the rhizosphere fungal community, using high-throughput sequencing of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) gene and quantitative PCR. During tillering, fungal alpha diversity in both rhizosphere and bulk soil were significantly higher under zero tillage compared to other methods. Although tillage had no significant effect during the flowering stage, fungal alpha diversity at this stage was significantly different between rhizosphere and bulk soils, with bulk soil presenting the highest diversity. This was also reflected in the phylogenetic structure of the communities, as rhizosphere soil communities underwent a greater shift from tillering to flowering compared to bulk soil communities. In general, less variation in community structure was observed under zero tillage compared to plow and chisel plow treatments. Changes in the relative abundance of the fungal orders Capnodiales, Pleosporales, and Xylariales contributed the highest to the dissimilarities observed. Structural equation models revealed that the soil fungal communities under the three tillage regimes were likely influenced by the changes in soil properties associated with plant growth. This study suggested that: (1) differences in nutrient resources between rhizosphere and bulk soils can select for different types of fungi thereby increasing community variation during plant growth; (2) tillage can alter fungal communities' variability, with zero tillage promoting more stable communities. This work suggests that long-term changes in tillage regimes may result in unique soil fungal ecology, which might influence other aspects of soil functioning (e.g., decomposition).

Temporal shifts of fungal communities in the rhizosphere and on tubers in potato fields

“…This could probably explain our findings because trials were established on plots where the previous crop was also potato. Conventional tillage, on the other hand, was shown to reduce fungal diversity in soil due to disruption of soil structure and fungal mycelia (Wang et al 2017).…”

Broad‐leaved forest types affect soil fungal community structure and soil organic carbon contents

“…Random resampling was achieved with 10,000 sequences per sample. Taxonomic assignment was performed using the Ribosomal Database Project classifier with 50% confidence through the fungal ITS UNITE database (Wang, Li, et al, ; Zhao et al, ).…”

Yeasts from Nanfeng mandarin plants: occurrence, diversity and capability to produce indole-3-acetic acid

“…Based on previous studies and some of the characteristics of yeast, we speculate that the flavour and quality of Nanfeng mandarin may be dependent on a certain relationship between yeasts and Nanfeng mandarin. At the same time, it is known that plant-associated microorganisms are extremely rich and have various biological functions: some of them can produce beneficial biologically active compounds [14,15], reduce the availability of heavy metals [16], improve the resistance of host plants to abiotic stresses [17,18], promote the agricultural disease resistance and have a growth-promoting action on plants [19][20][21][22]. It is believed that many of the plant-associated yeasts, like other microbes, have a definite biological function [23,24].…”