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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Microbe and Virus Interactions with Plants
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2024.1514234

Soil microbial community and influencing factors of different vegetation restoration types in a typical agricultural pastoral ecotone

Provisionally accepted
Pei Huang Pei Huang 1Duoping Zhu Duoping Zhu 1Zefeng Zhou Zefeng Zhou 2Lina Jiang Lina Jiang 1*Zhenhong Hou Zhenhong Hou 3Hanyu Shi Hanyu Shi 1Xingyu Ma Xingyu Ma 1
  • 1 Institute of Ecological Conservation and Restoration, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, China
  • 2 Institute of Forest Resource Information Techniques, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Haidian, Beijing, China
  • 3 Graduate Department of Chinese Academy of Forestry,, Beijing, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Microbial network complexity is an important indicator for assessing the effectiveness of vegetation restoration. However, the response of the microbial network complexity of bacteria and fungi to different vegetation restoration types is unclear. Therefore, in this study, we selected four vegetation restoration types (Pinus sylvestris var. mongholica, Larix principis-rupprechtii, Populus tomentosa and Ulmus pumila), while selected the nature grassland as a control, in the Zhangjiakou Tunken Forest Farm, which is a typical agricultural pastoral ecotone in northern China, to investigate the response of soil microbial diversity and network complexity to different vegetation restoration types. Our result showed that The bacterial Shannon and Chao indices of P. sylvestris var. mongholica were significantly 7.77% and 22.39% higher than those of grassland in the 20-40 cm soil layer, respectively. The fungal Chao indices of U. pumila were significantly 85.70% and 146.86% higher than those of grassland in the 20-40 cm and 40-60 cm soil layer, respectively. Compared to natural grassland, soil microbial networks became more complex in plantation forests restoration types (P. sylvestris var. mongholica, L. principis-rupprechtii, P. tomentosa and U. pumila).Microbial network complexity increased with soil carbon and nitrogen. P. tomentosa is suitable for planting in the agricultural pastoral ecotone of Zhangjiakou, because of its high soil carbon, nitrogen and microbial network complexity. Bacterial community composition was found to be closely related to soil organic carbon (SOC), total nitrogen (TN), while that of fungi was closely related to SOC, clay and silt content. This improvement in microbial complexity enhances the ecological service function of the agricultural pastoral ecotone. These findings offer theoretical basis and technical support for the vegetation restoration of ecologically fragile areas in agricultural pastoral ecotone.

    Keywords: agricultural pastoral ecotone 1, afforestation restoration 2, cooccurrence network analysis 3, microbial diversity 4, network complexity 5

    Received: 20 Oct 2024; Accepted: 24 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Huang, Zhu, Zhou, Jiang, Hou, Shi and Ma. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Lina Jiang, Institute of Ecological Conservation and Restoration, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, China

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