Changes in Soil Bacterial Community Structure in Bermudagrass Turf under Short-Term Traffic Stress

Abstract

Bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon (L.) Pers.) is an extensively utilized turf grass for football fields and golf courses. Traffic stress is one of the most important stresses affecting the life of turf, which leads to a decrease in turf quality and changes in the soil microbial community structure. The structural change in soil bacterial community is an important reference for turf growth, maintenance, and restoration. Tifgreen bermudagrass turf and Common bermudagrass turf were applied with traffic treatment by a traffic simulator with moderate intensity to explore soil bacterial community structural changes in turf under traffic stress. The environmental factors including turf quality indicators and soil properties were measured, and the association of the soil bacterial community diversity with the environment factors was analyzed. As a result, traffic treatments significantly changed the soil properties and bacterial community composition in two bermudagrass species at the phylum and genus level. Actinobacteria, Chloroflexi, and Verrucomicrobia showed significantly high abundance in turf soils under traffic stress. The soil bacterial ACE, Chaol, and Shannon indexes of two bermudagrass species under traffic stress were significantly lower than non-traffic stress. The bacterial community structure was highly correlated with some turf quality indicators and soil properties under traffic stress. Our results illustrate that compared to Common bermudagrass, Tifgreen bermudagrass had better turf quality under traffic stress and less changes in its bacterial community structure, perhaps Tifgreen bermudagrass is a better choice of grass for sports turf as opposed to Common bermudagrass.