Land-use changes influence soil bacterial communities in a meadow grassland in Northeast China

Abstract

Abstract. The conversion of natural grassland into agricultural fields is an intensive anthropogenic perturbation commonly occurring in semiarid regions, and this perturbation strongly affects soil microbiota. In this study, the influences of land-use conversion on the soil properties and bacterial communities in the Horqin Grasslands in Northeast China were assessed. This study aimed to investigate (1) how the abundances of soil bacteria changed across land-use types, (2) how the structure of the soil bacterial community was altered in each land-use type, and (3) how these variations were correlated with soil physical and chemical properties. Variations in the diversities and compositions of bacterial communities and the relative abundances of dominant taxa were detected in four distinct land-use systems, namely, natural meadow grassland, paddy field, upland field, and poplar plantation, through the high-throughput Illumina MiSeq sequencing technique. The results indicated that landuse changes primarily affected the soil physical and chemical properties and bacterial community structure. Soil properties, namely, organic matter, pH, total N, total P, available N and P, and microbial biomass C, N, and P, influenced the bacterial community structure. The dominant phyla and genera were almost the same among the land-use types, but their relative abundances were significantly different. The effects of land-use changes on the structure of soil bacterial communities were more quantitative than qualitative.

Keystone Microbiomes Revealed by 14 Years of Field Restoration of the Degraded Agricultural Soil Under Distinct Vegetation Scenarios

“…RDA ordination indicated that soil SOC content, pH, and AP played dominant roles in shaping the microbial community composition (Figure 4). This observation was contradictory to previous findings that pH was the key factor regulating the structures of bacterial community in soils (Cao et al, 2017), both on large and fine scales (Shen et al, 2013). Meanwhile, it has been shown that SOC was the best predictor for microbial community structure in soils across different agricultural land management at a given location (Sul et al, 2013).…”

Impact of Land Use on Bacterial Diversity and Community Structure in Temperate Pine and Indigenous Forest Soils

“…Intensive anthropogenic perturbations like the transformation of natural lands into managed lands have been reported to intensely alter soil microbiota. Approximately 40% of lands worldwide have been transformed into controlled systems and about 85% of them are affected by anthropogenic activities in one way or the other [13][14][15]. Humans have increased the immensity of land-use and land-use change is the most direct indication of the influences of human actions on the natural environment.…”

The Effect of Land-Use Change on Urban Grassland Soil Quality (Southern Poland)

“…Land-use conversion strongly alters natural ecosystems, often leading to habitat destruction (Cao et al 2017). In Poland, the National Programme for Increasing Forest Cover has been introduced, with the aim of increasing forest cover from 29.4% (present level) to 30% by 2020 (Report on the State of Forests in Poland 2014).…”

“…Currently, many soils are used improperly, which leads to their degradation. The assessment of soil quality is crucial in monitoring ecosystem stability and the sustainability of ecosystem services (Saviozzi et al 2001;Cao et al 2017).…”