Plant litter crust role in nutrients cycling potentials by bacterial communities in a sandy land ecosystem

Abstract

AbstractPlant litter is most important in mediating soil functioning during ecosystem recovery. In sandy ecosystems, the formation of a plant litter crust plays a crucial role in the process of restoration. This research explored the influence of the plant litter crust on sandy soil properties and the bacterial community, and the effect of the bacterial taxa on soil functions through driving sandy soil nutrients cycling and multienzyme activities. Our study focused on a range of litter crust ages and depths and used high‐throughput sequencing of the V4‐V5rRNA gene region. Our results show that the composition and diversity of bacterial communities in the plant litter crust relate to litter crust depth especially in the top sandy soil layer. We found strong correlations between soil bacterial community composition and most soil properties. Further analysis showed that Chloroflexi was important in the nutrients cycling and enzyme activities; Proteobacteria contribute to the cycling of most nutrients; Firmicutes contribute to most enzyme activities during the formation of plant litter crust in sandy ecosystems. In summary, our findings provide evidence that plant litter has significant positive impacts on soil functioning within dryland ecosystems through the contribution of bacterial taxa to soil nutrients cycling and multiple enzyme activities. The study further underlines the roles of plant litter in sandy ecosystems and the importance of sandy soil properties and microbial communities in sandy plant litter crust formation and function.