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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Functional Plant Ecology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2024.1473503
This article is part of the Research Topic Response and Adaptation of Terrestrial Ecosystem Carbon, Nitrogen, and Water Cycles to Climate Change in Arid Desert Regions View all 4 articles

Effect of stand age on rhizosphere microbial community assembly of dominant shrubs during sandy desert vegetation restoration

Provisionally accepted
Yunfei Li Yunfei Li 1,2Bingyao Wang Bingyao Wang 1Yanli Wang Yanli Wang 3Wenqiang He Wenqiang He 1,2Xudong Wu Xudong Wu 4Xue Zhang Xue Zhang 1Xiaorong Teng Xiaorong Teng 1Lichao Liu Lichao Liu 1,2Haotian Yang Haotian Yang 1*
  • 1 Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Lanzhou, China
  • 2 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, Beijing, China
  • 3 College of Forestry, Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou, Gansu Province, China
  • 4 Institute of Forestry and Grassland Ecology, Ningxia Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences, Yinchuan, Henan Province, China

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

    The rhizosphere microbial community helps govern biogeochemical cycling and facilitates complex plant-soil feedback. Understanding the evolutionary dynamics of microbial community structure and functional genes during vegetation succession is crucial for quantifying and understanding ecosystem processes and functions in restored sandy deserts. In this study, the rhizosphere microbial community structure of 11-66-year-old dominant shrubs in a desert revegetation area was examined using shotgun metagenomic sequencing. The interactions between the microbial community structure, functional gene abundances, soil properties, and plant characteristics of different stand ages were comprehensively investigated. The abundance of unique species first increased before subsequently decreasing with stand age, with shared species accounting for only 47.33%-59.42% of the total operational taxonomic units (OTUs). Copiotrophs such as Actinobacteria and Proteobacteria were found to dominate the rhizosphere soil microbial community, with their relative abundance accounting for 75.28%-81.41% of the total OTUs. There was a gradual shift in dominant microbial functional genes being involved in cellular processes towards those involved in environmental information processing and metabolism as stand age increased. Additionally, temporal partitioning was observed in both the microbial co-occurrence network complexity and topological parameters within the rhizosphere soil.Redundancy analysis revealed that dissolved organic carbon was the primary determinant influencing shifts in microbial community structure. Understanding the evolution of microbial community structure and function contributes to identifying potential mechanisms associating the soil microbiome with dominant sand-fixing shrubs as well as understanding the rhizosphere microbiome assembly process. These results shed light on the role of the rhizosphere microbiome in biogeochemical cycling and other ecosystem functions following revegetation of temperate sandy deserts.

    Keywords: microbial community, Metagenome, Microbial functional genes, Plant-soil interaction, desert ecosystem restoration

    Received: 31 Jul 2024; Accepted: 21 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Li, Wang, Wang, He, Wu, Zhang, Teng, Liu and Yang. 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: Haotian Yang, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Lanzhou, China

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