Soil microbial communities are shaped by vegetation type and park age in cities under cold climate

Hui, Nan; Jumpponen, Ari; Francini, Gaia; Kotze, D. Johan; Liu, Xinxin; Romantschuk, Martin; Strömmer, Rauni; Setälä, Heikki

doi:10.1111/1462-2920.13660

Cited by 130 publications

(113 citation statements)

References 78 publications

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“…Contrary to previous findings (Lauber et al 2009;Hui et al 2017a), the soil microbial (PLFA) community did not correlate with pH. In contrast, the gram-/gram+ ratio did.…”

Section: Earthwormscontrasting

confidence: 99%

“…Even though these two groups are not strict functional groups, they responded differently to soil pH; and in agreement with previous studies, gram-bacteria were relatively more abundant at high pH (Wang et al 2016). Further, our results also corroborate Hui et al (2017a), who showed that microbial communities (characterized with high throughput sequencing methods) in these urban parks were distinguished by plant functional types and correlated with % soil N and pH.…”

Section: Earthwormssupporting

confidence: 90%

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Soil biota in boreal urban greenspace: Responses to plant type and age

Francini

Hui

Jumpponen

et al. 2018

Soil Biology and Biochemistry

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Plant functional type influences the abundance and distribution of soil biota.With time, as root systems develop, such effects become more apparent. The relationship of plant type and time with the structure and abundance of soil microbial and invertebrate communities has been widely investigated in a variety of systems. However, much less is known about long-term soil community dynamics within the context of urban environments. In this study, we investigated how soil microbes, nematodes and earthworms respond to different plant functional types (lawns only and lawns with deciduous or evergreen trees) and park age in 41 urban parks in southern Finland. As nonurban controls we included deciduous and evergreen trees in 5 forest sites. We expected that microbial biomass and the relative abundance of fungi over bacteria would increase with time. We also expected major differences in soil microbial and nematode communities depending on vegetation: we hypothesized that i) the presence of trees, and evergreens in particular, would support a greater abundance of fungi and fungal-feeding nematodes over bacteria and bacterial-feeding nematodes and ii) the fungi to bacteria ratio would be lowest in lawns, with deciduous trees showing intermediate values.In contrast to our predictions, we showed that old deciduous trees, rather than evergreens, supported the highest fungal abundances and fungal-feeding nematodes in the soil. Consistent with our predictions, microbial biomass in urban park soils tended to increase with time, whereas -in contrast to our hypotheses -fungal-feeding nematode abundance declined. Even in the oldest parks included in the current study, microbial biomass estimates never approximated those in the minimally managed natural forests, where biomass estimates were three times higher. Anecic earthworm abundance also increased with time in urban parks, whereas abundances of fungal-feeding, plant-feeding and omnivorous nematodes, as well as those of epigeic and endogeic earthworms remained constant with time and without any distinct differences between urban parks and the control forests. Our findings highlight that although urban park soils harbor diverse soil communities and 2

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“…Contrary to previous findings (Lauber et al 2009;Hui et al 2017a), the soil microbial (PLFA) community did not correlate with pH. In contrast, the gram-/gram+ ratio did.…”

Section: Earthwormscontrasting

confidence: 99%

Section: Earthwormssupporting

confidence: 90%

Soil biota in boreal urban greenspace: Responses to plant type and age

Francini

Hui

Jumpponen

et al. 2018

Soil Biology and Biochemistry

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“…Fungal community composition at 0-10 cm depth responded to plant diversity, and fungi at 11-20 cm depth responded to plant height. The contrasting responses of bacteria and fungi to conditions at different depths, and the closer association of fungal composition with changes in plant diversity, are consistent with previous findings although the driving factors are still poorly understood, ranging from pH, through nitrogen, to antecedent use (Newbound et al 2012, Xu et al 2014, Sarah et al 2015, Yan et al 2016, Hui et al 2017. In our study system, recent antecedent use is uniform across treatments suggesting that divergent effects of plant communities on soil nitrogen may contribute to differences in microbial communities.…”

Section: Soilssupporting

confidence: 90%

“…, Hui et al. ). In our study system, recent antecedent use is uniform across treatments suggesting that divergent effects of plant communities on soil nitrogen may contribute to differences in microbial communities.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Urban meadows as an alternative to short mown grassland: effects of composition and height on biodiversity

Norton

Bending

Clark

et al. 2019

Ecological Applications

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There are increasing calls to provide greenspace in urban areas, yet the ecological quality, as well as quantity, of greenspace is important. Short mown grassland designed for recreational use is the dominant form of urban greenspace in temperate regions but requires considerable maintenance and typically provides limited habitat value for most taxa. Alternatives are increasingly proposed, but the biodiversity potential of these is not well understood. In a replicated experiment across six public urban greenspaces, we used nine different perennial meadow plantings to quantify the relative roles of floristic diversity and height of sown meadows on the richness and composition of three taxonomic groups: plants, invertebrates, and soil microbes. We found that all meadow treatments were colonized by plant species not sown in the plots, suggesting that establishing sown meadows does not preclude further locally determined grassland development if management is appropriate. Colonizing species were rarer in taller and more diverse plots, indicating competition may limit invasion rates. Urban meadow treatments contained invertebrate and microbial communities that differed from mown grassland. Invertebrate taxa responded to changes in both height and richness of meadow vegetation, but most orders were more abundant where vegetation height was longer than mown grassland. Order richness also increased in longer vegetation and Coleoptera family richness increased with plant diversity in summer. Microbial community composition seems sensitive to plant species composition at the soil surface (0–10 cm), but in deeper soils (11–20 cm) community variation was most responsive to plant height, with bacteria and fungi responding differently. In addition to improving local residents’ site satisfaction, native perennial meadow plantings can produce biologically diverse grasslands that support richer and more abundant invertebrate communities, and restructured plant, invertebrate, and soil microbial communities compared with short mown grassland. Our results suggest that diversification of urban greenspace by planting urban meadows in place of some mown amenity grassland is likely to generate substantial biodiversity benefits, with a mosaic of meadow types likely to maximize such benefits.

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“…, Hui et al. ). Due to their denser vegetation, forests supply an abundance of plant litter rich in lignin and cellulose, which can be degraded by Basidiomycota (Sánchez ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changes in soil fungal communities and vegetation following afforestation with Pinus tabulaeformis on the Loess Plateau

Dang

Shen

et al. 2018

Ecosphere

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Soil fungi have important effects on plant performance and nutrient cycling. To understand the dynamics of the soil fungal community and their response to changes in understory plants and soil properties after afforestation, we investigated a cropland site (CL) and three Pinus tabulaeformis plantation sites with different ages (15, 30, and 45 yr) in the Ziwuling Mountains, Loess Plateau, China. Afforestation increased the soil organic carbon (SOC), total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), NO À 3 -N, and NH þ 4 -N contents but decreased the available phosphorus (AP). The biomass and diversity of plants decreased in the herb layer with plantation age, and the biomass of plants increased in the shrub layer. Compared with cropland, the soil fungal diversity indices decreased significantly after afforestation. The soil fungal communities were dominated by Ascomycetes in CL and the 15-year-old plantation, whereas Basidiomycota dominated in the 30-and 45-year-old sites. Correlation analysis showed that the understory vegetation influenced the richness indices more than the diversity indices for the soil fungal community, and herb layer plants had stronger effects on the core soil fungal communities than the shrub layer plants. Soil organic carbon, TN, AP, C:P ratio, and N:P ratio were significantly correlated with the soil fungal communities. Moreover, the C:P ratio and N:P ratio increased as the forest age increased, thereby indicating that P was a crucial influence factor that affected the development of the soil fungal community in P. tabulaeformis plantations.

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Soil microbial communities are shaped by vegetation type and park age in cities under cold climate

Cited by 130 publications

References 78 publications

Soil biota in boreal urban greenspace: Responses to plant type and age

Soil biota in boreal urban greenspace: Responses to plant type and age

Urban meadows as an alternative to short mown grassland: effects of composition and height on biodiversity

Changes in soil fungal communities and vegetation following afforestation with Pinus tabulaeformis on the Loess Plateau

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