Selecting logging, and old secondary vegetation conserve biodiversity and composition of bacteria and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in a community-based forestry in the Maya Forest

Abstract

The impacts of selective logging on arbuscular mycorrhiza and bacteria of tropical forests are little known globally. In this study, we analysed and compared the composition and diversity of bacteria and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) in a forest with sustainable management (stands with 6-years-old after selective logging) compared with a conserved forest and secondary vegetation recovered from agriculture (20-years-old) in Nuevo Becal, Campeche, Mexico. The analyses were based on environmental DNA sequences using Illumina miseq platform and morphological diversity of AMF glomerospores. We found 30 species of virtual AMF taxa (10 potential new virtual taxa) based on DNA sequences, 22 AMF species based on morphology, and 3,963 amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) for bacteria. For AMF, the most abundant order (in the whole study) were the Glomerales (with higher significant abundance in secondary vegetation), followed by Gigasporales and Diversisporales, while for bacterial phylum, Proteobacteria and Actinobacteria were highly represented, followed by Acidobacteria, Planctomycetes, Nitrospirae, Bacteroidetes, and Gemmationonadetes. Actinobacteria showed significantly higher relative abundance in conserved forests, Chloroflexi in managed forests, and Verrucomicrobia in secondary vegetation. Bacterial and glomerospores community composition did not showed significant differences among the three sites analysed. However, AMF VT community composition were significant different between the conserved forest and secondary vegetation. Forest management showed higher bacteria and glomerospores diversity (Shannon index) compared to the conserved forest and secondary vegetation. Our study showed that stands 6 years after selective logging and old secondary vegetation conserved an important bacteria and AMF species compared with conserved forests.