Influence of Tourism Disturbance on Soil Microbial Community Structure in Dawei Mountain National Forest Park

Qunjun Li,Meiqi Dai,Fen Luo

doi:10.3390/su14031162

Abstract

This research aimed to reveal the response characteristics of soil microbial community structure to different degrees of tourism disturbance. To explore the soil microbial community structure’s response mechanism, we set up continuous plots with different interference intensities: high disturbance, middle disturbance, and the control area. We collected 0–10 cm topsoil in all plots and used Illumina MiSeq high-throughput sequencing method to obtain and analyze the response characteristics of soil microbial community composition and structure under different tourism disturbances. These results were then combined with alpha diversity and environmental factors to explore the microbial response mechanism. In the tested soil, Acidobacteria, Chlorocurve, and Proteobacteria were the main bacterial phyla, while Basidiomycota and Ascomycota were the main fungal phyla. Based on the phylum, the relative abundance of the microbial community between the interference groups was compared using a significance test, with significant differences found between the interference groups in the phyla Chloroflexus, GAL15, Rokubacteria, and Blastomonas (p < 0.05). The relative abundance of the dominant phyla in the fungal community was significantly different among the groups (p < 0.05). A principal component analysis of the soil microbial community structure suggested that the soil microbial community structure was significantly different for different interference levels.

Highlights

In tourist areas, infrastructure construction and recreational tourism activities that have a certain impact on the ecological environment is called tourism interference [1,2,3].One of the environmental factors most affected by tourism disturbance is soil [4,5]
Preliminary investigations have shown that the impact of tourism interference on the soil in the Dawei Mountain Scenic Area mainly occurs within 3 m of the edge of the tour route, with obvious boundaries in the interference area, and mainly in heavily and moderately disturbed areas
The physical and chemical soil properties analyzed under different interference levels showed that there were significant differences in soil bulk density, Potential of hydrogen (pH) value, ammonium nitrogen, catalase, invertase, alkaline phosphatase, and nitrate nitrogen among different tourism disturbance groups (p < 0.05)

Summary

Introduction

Infrastructure construction and recreational tourism activities that have a certain impact on the ecological environment is called tourism interference [1,2,3].One of the environmental factors most affected by tourism disturbance is soil [4,5]. Infrastructure construction and recreational tourism activities that have a certain impact on the ecological environment is called tourism interference [1,2,3]. Related research has shown that the surface soil of Dawei Mountain in Hunan province is slightly polluted; microorganisms have played an important role in soil health, especially in regard to the degradation of heavy metals [7]. Multidisciplinary microbiology has regarded the microbial community structure as the focus of the subject field, mainly due to its important role in maintaining the ecosystemic equipoise and the characteristics and functions of the soil. From a soil ecological balance and biodiversity perspective, it is important to understand the impact of tourism disturbance on the soil microbial community structure in ecologically fragile areas

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Discussion

Conclusion