Abstract
The interaction between soil property and soil microbial community in karst area still remains an open question. The characteristics of soil physicochemical properties and microbial community structure and their relationship under five vegetation succession stages (grassland, shrub land, secondary forest, plantation forest, and natural forest) at two soil depths (0–10 cm and 10–20 cm) were explored in a karst mountain ecosystem. We found that soil moisture content (SMC) and pH increased with soil depth across vegetation succession. The highest content of soil nutrients was found in the natural forest stage at both soil depths. The total PLFAs, the abundance of Gram-positive (GP) bacteria, actinomycetes (ACT), fungi, and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) were significantly (P < 0.05) related to variations with soil total carbon (TC) and total nitrogen (TN). Furthermore, the distribution of soil microbial community distinctly differed in vegetation succession both at two soil layers which was demonstrated by Principal-coordinates analysis. Redundancy analyses patterns indicated that soil TC and TN were positively related to cy19:0 and 10Me 16:0, but an opposite relationship with a15:0. Changes of soil microbial communities were significantly determined by vegetation succession, and soil microbial community structure can be a sensitive indicator to reflect the stabilization of karst mountain ecosystem, southwest of China.
Highlights
Soil microorganisms play critical roles in soil organic matter decomposition, nutrient recycling and ecosystem stabilization, which are major active components of terrestrial ecosystem[1]
The objective was to address the following questions, (1) Following the vegetation succession, what is the change of soil physicochemical properties, microbial biomass, and microbial communities differed in different soil depths?; (2) what are the characteristics of soil microbial community in vulnerable karst areas? and (3) what are the key factors that affect the microbial community?
Soil physicochemical properties were significantly higher than other vegetation types at both depths in the natural forest (P < 0.05, Table 1)
Summary
Soil microorganisms play critical roles in soil organic matter decomposition, nutrient recycling and ecosystem stabilization, which are major active components of terrestrial ecosystem[1]. Along the vegetation succession stages soil microbial properties (microbial biomass and phylogenetic diversity) increased significantly in karst ecosystem[4]. Such interactions between vegetation and soil microbes are reflected by the fact that changes in microbial composition, activity, and biomass largely resulted from the higher litter quality of vegetation associated with great diversity. Studies have focused on the changes in soil physicochemical properties and microbial biomass properties during vegetation succession in the fragile karst ecosystem[19,20]. Little information is available on interactions of the microbial community and physicochemical properties at different soil depths during vegetation succession in the karst ecosystem.
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