Abstract
Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi play an important role in plant-fungi communities. It remains a central question of how the AM fungal community changes as plants grow. To establish an understanding of AM fungal community dynamics associated with Chinese fir, Chinese fir with five different growth stages were studied and 60 root samples were collected at the Jiangle National Forestry Farm, Fujian Province. A total of 76 AM fungal operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were identified by high-throughput sequencing on an Illumina Miseq platform. The genera covered by OTUs were Glomus, Archaeospora, Acaulospora, Gigaspora and Diversispora. Glomus dominated the community in the whole stage. The number and composition of OTUs varied along with the host plant growth. The number of OTUs showed an inverted V-shaped change with the host plant age, and the maximum occurred in 23-year. Overall, the basic species diversity and richness in this study were stable. Non-metric multi-dimensional scaling (NMDS) analysis based on bray-curtis distance revealed that there were remarkable differentiations between the 9-year and other stages. Besides, AM fungal community in 32-year had a significant difference with that of 23-year, while no significant difference with that of 45-year, suggesting that 32-year may be a steady stage for AM fungi associated with Chinese fir. The cutting age in 32-year may be the most favorable for microbial community. The pH, total N, total P, total K, available N, available P, available K, organic matter and Mg varied as the Chinese fir grows. According to Mantel test and redundancy analysis, available N, available P, K and Mg could exert significant influence on AM fungal communities, and these variables explained 31% of variance in the composition of AM fungal communities.
Highlights
Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi, belonging to the phylum Glomeromycotina[1], can form mutualistic associations with more than 80% of land plant species[2]
There were 76 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were retained from the 60 root samples of Chinese fir with Illumina sequencing
The genera covered by OTUs were Glomus, Archaeospora, Acaulospora, Gigaspora and Diversispora, among those Glomus occupied the majority(75%), followed by Archaeospora
Summary
Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi, belonging to the phylum Glomeromycotina[1], can form mutualistic associations with more than 80% of land plant species[2]. Compared with grassland and crops, investigations of the impact of long-lived woody hosts on the AM fungal community structure are still limited, especially collecting woody plant roots as samples. The plantations were harvested as young as 17 years[23] Whether such a short rotation period is conducive to the restoration of forest soil remains to be verified. Previous studies have mainly focused on the management of the aboveground plants in the forest, the influence of soil nutrients and allelopathy on the growth of Chinese fir[24,25,26]. The main aim of our study was to understand the dynamic of the AM fungal community associated in a chronosequence of Chinese fir, explore the driving environmental factors and provide a foundation for cutting age of Chinese fir. 60 samples were obtained from Chinese fir stands with five different growth stages and some questions were raised: Do the AM fungal communities change along a chronosequence of Chinese fir? If so, which stage (period) does the variation occurs? Which environmental factors are most closely related to the variation? How long is the best rotation period?
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