The relict plant Tetraena mongolica plantations increase the nutrition and microbial diversity in desert soil

Yanan Quan ^1,2 Xiuwen Gan ^1,2 Shiyun Lu ^1,2 Xiaodong Shi ^1,2 Mingsheng Bai ^1,2 Ying Lin ^1,2 Yufei Gou ^1,2 Hong Zhang ^1,2 Xinyue Zhang ^1,2 Jiayuan Wei ^1,2 Tianyu Chang ^1,2 Jingyu Li ^1,2 Jianli Liu ^1,2*

• ¹ College of Biological Science and Engineering, North Minzu University, Yinchuan, China
• ² Key Laboratory of Ecological Protection of Agro-Pastoral Ecotones in the Yellow River Basin National Ethnic Affairs Commission of the People’s Republic of China, Yinchuan, Henan Province, China

Tetraena mongolica was established in the West Ordos Region of northwest China approximately 140 million years ago. It plays an irreplaceable role in maintaining local ecosystemstability. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of planting T. mongolica on soil nutrition and microbial communities by comparing the root zone soil (Rz_soil) and bare soil (B_soil) across three different plant communitie. The results showed that T. mongolica decreased soil pH and Na + while increasing available potassium, soil organic matter, organic carbon, total nitrogen, and potassium.T. mongolica significantly improved the diversity indices (Sobs and Ace), as well as the richness index (Chao), of bacterial and fungal communities across three plant communities. Meanwhile, the relative abundances of Rubrobacter and norank_c_Actinobacteria in the bacterial communities declined significantly in the Rz_soil compared with the B_soil across all three plant communities.In contrast, the relative abundances of Fusarium and Penicillium were higher, whereas those of Monosporascus and Darksidea were lower in Rz_soil than in B_soil in the two plant communities.T. mongolica decreased the soil bacterial co-occurrence networks while increasing the soil fungal co-occurrence networks. In addition, T. mongolica enhanced soil functions related to energy gain through denitrification, methylotrophy, hydrogen oxidation, photoconversion, and matter 2 acquisition through organic matter decomposition, aromatic compound degradation, and photoconversion. However, T. mongolica had no significant effect on the functional aspects of the fungal communities. These results provide a new perspective to understand the role of T. Mongolica in the desert ecosystems.