Using moss as a bio-indicator to evaluate soil quality in litchi orchard

Abstract

Moss, was frequently found growing in litchi orchards. However, less known about whether it can be used as a visual bio-indicator for evaluating soil fertility and health. Therefore, soil chemical and biological properties, microbial community structures and the metabolic functions of microbes in soils between moss- and non-moss-growth areas were analyzed using traditional and high-throughput sequencing technologies. The results showed that pH and the contents of and available phosphorus (AP) in moss growth areas were significantly lower than those of non-moss growth areas, but the contents of alkali-hydrolyzable nitrogen (AN) and available potassium (AK) were significantly increased. In comparison with the soil of the non-moss-growth area, the abundances of hypotrophic microorganisms, such as Chloroflexi, Cyanobacteria and WPS-2 enriched in the soil of the moss-grown area. Moreover, the proportions of eutrophic microorganisms, such as Proteobacteria and Firmicutes also declined in the soils of the moss-growth area. Furthermore, the metabolic pathways of soil bacteria and fungi were also degraded in the moss-growth area. All above results indicated that not only lower soil fertility, but also soil microbial diversity also declined in moss growth area which compared to those of non-moss growth area. In one word, moss can be considered using as a visual bio-indicator for representing soil degradation in litchi orchards.

The Characteristics of the Root-Zone Soil’s Biological Properties and Microbial Community Structure in Grafted Star Anise Plantations

“…The average yearly temperature is 22 ℃ in this area, which is in the subtropical monsoon climatic zone. The soil type of the study area was acid red loam and the basic soil chemical properties of the experimental site, including the pH (5.46), soil organic matter (12.9 g kg −1 ), total nitrogen (0.81 g kg −1 ), total phosphorus (0.39 g kg −1 ), total potassium (2.68 g kg −1 ), alkaline nitrogen (53.7 mg kg −1 ), available phosphorus (9.1 mg kg −1 ), and available potassium (89.0 mg kg −1 ) were determined by referring to our previous methods [ 36 ].…”

“…We used the FastDNA ® Spin Kit for Soil (MP Biomedicals, Santa Ana, CA, USA) to extract the soil microbial community genomic DNA. The extraction, PCR amplification, and sequencing of the total DNA of the soil samples were performed following previously described protocols [ 1 , 36 ]. The hypervariable region V3-V4 of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene was amplified with the primer pairs 338F and 806R, and the region ITS1 of the fungal ITS gene was amplified with the primer pairs ITS1F and ITS2R [ 1 , 36 ].…”

“…The extraction, PCR amplification, and sequencing of the total DNA of the soil samples were performed following previously described protocols [ 1 , 36 ]. The hypervariable region V3-V4 of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene was amplified with the primer pairs 338F and 806R, and the region ITS1 of the fungal ITS gene was amplified with the primer pairs ITS1F and ITS2R [ 1 , 36 ]. We deposited the raw reads of both bacteria and fungi in the NCBI Sequence Read Archive (SRA) database (Accession Number: PRJNA987439).…”

“…We deposited the raw reads of both bacteria and fungi in the NCBI Sequence Read Archive (SRA) database (Accession Number: PRJNA987439). The data processing and microbial diversity analysis were the same as those in our previous study [ 1 , 24 , 36 ].…”

Can endophytic microbial compositions in cane roots be shaped by different propagation methods

“…Each OTU’s matching KEGG Orthology (KO) information and COG family information were acquired, and the abundance of each COG and KO could then be computed. The functional and descriptive data for each COG were obtained by parsing the COG database against the eggNOG database [ 44 ].…”