Abstract
Grazing as one of the most important disturbances affects the abundance, diversity and community composition of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi in ecosystems, but the AM fungi in response to grazing in wetland ecosystems remain poorly documented. Here, we examined AM fungi in roots and soil in grazing and non-grazing plots in Zoige wetland on the Qinghai-Tibet plateau. Grazing significantly increased AM fungal spore density and glomalin-related soil proteins, but had no significant effect on the extra radical hyphal density of AM fungi. While AM fungal richness and community composition differed between roots and soil, grazing was found to influence only the community composition in soil. This study shows that moderate grazing can increase the biomass of AM fungi and soil carbon sequestration, and maintain the AM fungal diversity in the wetland ecosystem. This finding may enhance our understanding of the AM fungi in response to grazing in the wetland on the Qinghai-Tibet plateau.
Highlights
Wetlands cover about 6% of the land surface on the earth and have high species diversity, including many endemic species (Junk et al, 2013)
Revealing the arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi in response to grazing is of great importance for understanding the diversity maintenance and community stability of plants in ecosystems, especially in wetland ecosystems
In order to reveal the AM fungi in response to grazing in wetland ecosystem, we established non-grazing and moderate grazing plots in Zoige wetland on the Qinghai-Tibet plateau
Summary
Wetlands cover about 6% of the land surface on the earth and have high species diversity, including many endemic species (Junk et al, 2013). Wetlands provide important ecological functions in water resource conservation and quality purification, climate regulation, substance circulation and regional ecological balance maintenance (Green et al, 2017). As an important carbon (C) pool, wetlands can reduce the impact of increased greenhouse gases on global climate change (Frolking et al, 2011). Wetland ecosystems have suffered severe degradations in recent decades due to global warming, intense resource exploitation, changes in hydrology and human disturbance (Xiang et al, 2009; Junk et al, 2013). Over-grazing as one of the most important human activities, has affected biodiversity, productivity, community stability and soil C cycling in wetlands (Hoffmann et al, 2016; Zhou et al, 2017)
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