Use of ciliate communities for monitoring ecological restoration of grain for the green in north-western China

Abstract

A 1-year baseline survey was conducted in north-western China to evaluate the ecological restoration quality of grain for green (GFG) using soil ciliate communities. The aims of this study were focused on analyzing the changes of soil ciliate communities in four plots (A, GFG for 15 years; B, GFG for 13 years; C, layland; D, cultivated land) for GFG environmental assessment. Simultaneously we studied the effects of vegetation communities and physical-chemical variables with GFG changes on soil ciliates. A total of 114 species of ciliates were identified among the four sample sites, representing 9 classes, 14 orders, 22 families and 37 genera. The community patterns of the soil ciliates were significantly correlated with the individual abundance of aboveground plants, soil water content, and soil porosity. The contents of total nitrogen were the main factor affecting the soil ciliate community composition. The species number, individual abundance, and diversity index of the ciliates were each in the order A>B>C>D; that is, the community composition of ciliates was complicated with the implementation of the GFG. It was shown that the succession of ciliate community shifts toward promoting the complexity with the progress of GFG. These findings demonstrate that soil ciliate communities may be used as a useful indicator to evaluate the effects of the ecological restoration quality of GFG.

Soil Alveolata diversity in the undisturbed steppe and wheat agrocenoses under different tillage

“…The core of the ciliate communities in both studies belonged to the classes Oligohymenophorea, Spirotrichea and Litostomatea, together accounting for 65 % of species richness in the Far East study and 52 % of species richness and 41-50 % of the total number of sequence reads in our study. Another very recent study in the northwest of China, also employing traditional methodo logy to identify and enumerate ciliates, found 114 species of ciliates among four sampling sites, varying in vegetation and land use (Liu H. et al, 2022). Thus, we can safely conclude that soil ciliates diversity data, obtained here by sequencing amplicons of ITS2 region of rRNA genes, encompassed a significant portion of true ciliate diversity in soil, providing ecologically relevant and meaningful assemblage profiles in the context of our study.…”

“…Another study reported the ultimate (55 %) dominance of colpodids (by classical methodology) (Bamforth, 2001) in a range of different soils; a notable presence of the group (found by metatransciptomics) was also reported (Geisen et al, 2015). Another very recent study of ciliates in Castanozems in the north-west of China identified nine classes of soil ciliates (Liu H. et al, 2022), with Spirotrichea and Litostomatea being the most species-rich and Colpodea ranking third. Unlike all those studies, here, we did not find any Colpodea.…”

Exploring Microeukaryote Community Characteristics and Niche Differentiation in Arid Farmland Soil at the Northeastern Edge of the Tibetan Plateau

“…Interestingly, it is possible that this significant difference is due to different weighting of species with the same abundance. The Shannon index emphasizes relative abundance, while the Simpson index emphasizes species richness [49][50][51]. The observed differences suggest that the soil microenvironment significantly influences the composition and distribution of protist and fungal communities.…”

Spatiotemporal distribution patterns of soil ciliate communities in the middle reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River

“…Fresh litter on the soil surface was picked off before sample collection, and relevant data such as soil quality, soil temperature, altitude, geographical coordinates and vegetation status were recorded. Soil sampler (LEICI, JC-802B, China) was used to collect 0-5 cm surface soil samples according to the "fivepoint pattern of blossom" sampling method (Liu et al, 2022). One soil sample was collected from each sampling point, and a total of five soil samples were collected from each sample plot.…”