Soil Microbial Community Varied with Vegetation Types on a Small Regional Scale of the Qilian Mountains

Abstract

Clarifying the response of soil microbial communities to the change of different vegetation types on a small regional scale is of great significance for understanding the sustainability of grassland development. However, the distribution patterns and driving factors of the microbial community are not well understood in the Qilian Mountains. Therefore, we characterized and compared the soil microbial communities underlying the four vegetation types in a national natural reserve (reseeded grassland, swamp meadow, steppe meadow, and cultivated grassland) using high-throughput sequencing of the 16S rRNA and ITS. Meanwhile, the plant community and soil physicochemical characteristics were also determined. The results showed that bacterial and fungal communities in all vegetation types had the same dominant species, but the relative abundance differed substantially, which caused significant spatial heterogeneities on the small regional scale. Specifically, bacteria showed higher variability among different vegetation types than fungi, among which the bacterial and fungal communities were more sensitive to the changes in soil than to plant characteristics. Furthermore, soil organic carbon affected the widest portion of the microbial community, nitrate-nitrogen was the main factor affecting bacteria, and aboveground plant biomass was the main factor affecting fungi. Collectively, these results demonstrate the value of considering multiple small regional spatial scales when studying the relationship between the soil microbial community and environmental characteristics. Our study may have important implications for grassland management following natural disturbances or human alterations.

Soil organic matter and water content affect the community characteristics of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in Helan mountain, an arid desert grassland area in China

“…The Helan mountains exhibit distinct vertical distribution patterns in vegetation zones, giving rise to significant differences in soil AMF across these zones (Li et al, 2015). Research has established a direct correlation between soil AMF community diversity and plant community diversity and stability (Stover et al, 2018;Zhao et al, 2022). The region with the highest soil AMF diversity on the eastern slopes of the Helan mountains is situated in the lower altitude GR.…”

Compositional Shifts and Co-occurrence Patterns of Topsoil Bacteria and Micro-Eukaryotes Across a Permafrost Thaw Gradient in Alpine Meadows of the Qilian Mountains, China

“…The Qilian Mountains, located along the plateau’s northern edge, are acutely responsive to climatic fluctuations, making them a critical area for studying permafrost ecosystem responses to global warming. Research in this region has focused on soil microbial community dynamics, influenced by variables such as elevation gradients (Duan et al, 2021; Xu et al, 2014) and vegetation types (Chen et al, 2019; Zhao et al, 2021) . Key soil physiochemical properties, including moisture, pH, and organic carbon content, have been linked to shifts in microbial community structure (Feng et al, 2020; Li et al, 2021) .…”

Seasonal freeze-thaw characteristics of soil carbon pools under different vegetation restoration types on the Longzhong Loess Plateau

“…During the revegetation process in this area, a large amount of sloping land was abandoned for natural recovery or converted to grassland and tree shrub forest (Xiao et al, 2019). It has been pointed out that vegetation restoration is an important measure to obtain ecological benefits, effectively increasing biodiversity (Deng et al, 2019;Yan et al, 2019), changing soil properties (Williams-Linera et al, 2021;Zhao et al, 2022), and significantly affecting the composition and function of regional ecosystems (Fu et al, 2020). However, the combination of external factors has produced a change in surface vegetation cover during the restoration process for different vegetation types (Feng et al, 2022).…”