Revegetation by sowing reduces soil bacterial and fungal diversity

Abstract

Aim:The aim of this study was to understand the effects of revegetation on the diversity of bacteria and fungi in soil by sowing a single species and exploring the underlying mechanism.Location: Beijing, China. Taxon: Plants and Microbes.Methods: In a short-term ecological restoration experiment, one natural recovery treatment and three seed sowing treatments were chosen to assess their effects on the alteration of fungal and bacterial diversity. Plant species richness, abundance, and height were investigated. The diversity of fungi and bacteria was analyzed by high-throughput sequencing technologies. Linear mixed-effects model analysis was used to examine the effects of different restoration methods on biodiversity and ecosystem functions. Pearson's correlation analysis, analysis of covariance, and structural equation modeling (SEM) were used to examine the relationship between biodiversity and environmental factors. Results: Species richness and the Shannon-Wiener Index (H′) of plants in the sown treatments were lower than in the natural recovery treatment, especially with sowing of Medicago sativa L. Similarly, the sum of the observed species and H′ of fungi and bacteria significantly decreased in the sown treatments. Moreover, plant density, community coverage, and soil moisture increased markedly, while soil bulk density decreased in the sown treatments. Importantly, SEM showed that sown treatments reduced the diversity of plants through increasing plant density, while it decreased the diversity of fungi and bacteria through decreasing the plant diversity and increasing soil moisture.Main conclusions: Our findings confirm that ecological restoration by sowing could improve soil conditions, but may be unfavorable to the amelioration of soil microbial diversity in the short-term. Restoration practitioners should consider long-term studies on the dynamics of biodiversity in the above-and belowground after revegetation by native species to achieve goals related to biodiversity conservation.

Vegetation Restoration Alters Fungal Community Composition and Functional Groups in a Desert Ecosystem

“…Vegetation recovery and reconstruction regulate and control the interactions between microbial communities and forest development, which mainly manifest in the dynamics of microbial diversity and structure (Cavard et al, 2011;Chanthorn et al, 2017). In this study, soil fungal community diversity and structure response to revegetation duration were investigated; these have been confirmed in abandoned farmland (Wang et al, 2020), mining area (Prado et al, 2019), and desert areas (Yu et al, 2017). The variation of Shannon diversities initially decreased and then increased with temporal succession due to two reasons.…”

“…Symbiotrophs promote plants' ability to absorb nutrients and increase resistance to drought, heavy metals, diseases, and insect pests (Liu et al, 2007;Peay et al, 2013). The diversity and distribution of the functional groups in soil fungi determine the ecological effects of soil fungal communities, which are of great significance for the revegetation process under stress (Jin et al, 2016;Detheridge et al, 2018;Wang et al, 2020).…”

A global meta‐analysis of the impacts of tree plantations on biodiversity

“…The positive relationship between reforestation age and the effects of reforestation on biodiversity under any given regime as found in our study might result from two mechanisms working independently or in combination. First, planted species with higher abundance in a community could acquire more nutrients and light than local species at the young stage (Wang et al, 2012(Wang et al, , 2020, resulting in narrower niche availability for the colonization of local species, and the community will consist of only those few species capable of reaching maturity quickly (Connell, 1978). This will result in a lower plant diversity in reforestation, which will lead to lower biodiversity at other trophic levels.…”

Clary Sage Cultivation and Mycorrhizal Inoculation Influence the Rhizosphere Fungal Community of an Aged Trace-Element Polluted Soil

“…Remarkably, 69 distinct AMF ASVs belonging to 12 AMF genera were identified in our conditions, with a prevalence of Funneliformis and Glomus genera. Hence, in spite of TE pollution and past agricultural practices, which have been demonstrated to be key drivers of the microbial community composition, a relatively high number of AMF species were detected in our TE-polluted site [ 16 , 98 , 99 ]. This prevalence, in terms of relative abundance of native AMF species, could even suggest a long-term adaptation of these species to the TE-polluted context, which could hence be more suited to surviving and colonizing plant roots in comparison with the exogenous species.…”