Increased Soil Fertility in Tea Gardens Leads to Declines in Fungal Diversity and Complexity in Subsoils

Abstract

Soil fungi are key drivers regulating processes between ecosystem fertility and plant growth; however, the responses of soil fungi community composition and diversity in deeper soil layers to the plantation and fertilization remain limited. Using soil samples along with vertical soil profile gradients with 0–10 cm, 0–20 cm, 20–40 cm, and 40–60 cm in a tea garden, we used Illumina sequencing to investigate the fungal diversity and assemblage complexity, and correlated to the low, middle, and high-level fertilize levels. The results showed that the fungal community dissimilarities were different between adjacent forests and tea gardens, with predominate groups changed from saprotrophs to symbiotrophs and pathotrophs after the forest converted to the tea garden. Additionally, the symbiotrophs were more sensitive to soil fertility than pathotrophs and saprotrophs. Subsoil fungal communities present lower diversity and fewer network connections under high soil fertility, which contrasted with the trends of topsoil fungi. Soil pH and nutrients were correlated with fungal diversity in the topsoils, while soil K and P concentrations showed significant effects in the subsoil. Overall, the soil fungal communities in tea gardens responded to soil fertility varied with soil vertical spatial locations, which can be explained by the vertical distribution of fungal species. It was revealed that fertility treatment could affect fungal diversity, and alter network structure and potential ecosystem function in tea garden subsoils.

Changing trends of soil fungal communities in the western foot of the Greater Khingan Mountains under drought stress

“…With the aggravation of drought stress, Ascomycota shows a significant upward trend, which may be due to the high species diversity and evolution speed of Ascomycota, which is more suitable for the arid environment [34], and Ascomycota is mostly saprophytic bacteria, it plays an essential role in degrading soil organic matter [35]., In this study, Basidiomycota and Glomeromycota decreased with the aggravation of drought stress. Basidiomycota is mostly saprophytic bacteria, which can promote soil material circulation, and many mycorrhizal fungal are Basidiomycota, which are beneficial soil bacteria that can antagonize root pathogens [36], so as to optimize the original soil microbial ecological environment. Glomeromycota is an important arbuscular mycorrhiza in this study.…”

Understanding and exploring the diversity of soil microorganisms in tea (Camellia sinensis) gardens: toward sustainable tea production

“…Similarly, Ma et al (2022) in a study conducted on soils of tea plantations revealed that fungal community predominantly consisted Earlier reports indicated that fungal communities in several tea gardens at the genus level are dominated primarily by Saitozyma (Ma et al, 2022;Wang et al, 2023). Members of the Saitozyma, have been shown to account for ~30% of the sequences in tea garden soils in the Southeast Asia region, followed by Mortierella (20%) and Pseudogymnoascus (10%) (Yan P. et al, 2022). Basidiomycota, such as Saitozyma, Russula and Hygrocybe commonly found in tea gardens, are well known to colonize lignin-rich surfaces and likely play significant roles in the degradation of lignin-rich plant litters (Guo et al, 2018;Kui et al, 2021), transforming these substrates to provide carbon and nitrogen as well as other nutrients for plant growth (Li et al, 2020).…”