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Variations in Soil Nutrient Dynamics and Bacterial Communities After the Conversion of Forests to Long-Term Tea Monoculture Systems.

ABSTRACT: The soil microbial community is a key indicator to evaluate the soil health and productivities in agricultural ecosystems. Monoculture and conversions of forests to tea plantations have been widely applied in tea plantation globally, but long-term monoculture of tea plantation could lead to soil degradation and yield decline. Understanding how long-term monoculture systems influence the soil health and ecosystem functions in tea plantation is of great importance for soil environment management. In this study, through the comparison of three independent tea plantations across eastern China composed of varying stand ages (from 3 to 90 years after conversion from forest), we found that long-term tea monoculture led to significant increases in soil total organic carbon (TOC) and microbial nitrogen (MBN). Additionally, the structure, function, and co-occurrence network of soil bacterial communities were investigated by pyrosequencing 16S rRNA genes. The pyrosequencing analysis revealed that the structures and functions of soil bacterial communities were significantly affected by different stand ages, but sampling sites and land-use conversion (from forest to tea plantation) had stronger effects than stand age on the diversity and structure of soil bacterial communities. Soil bacterial diversity can be improved with increasing stand ages in tea plantation. Further RDA analysis revealed that the C and N availability improvement in tea plantation soils led to the variation of structure and function in soil bacterial communities. Moreover, co-occurrence network analysis of soil bacterial communities also demonstrated that interactions among soil bacteria taxa were strengthened with increasing stand age. Our findings suggest that long-term monoculture with proper managements could be beneficial to soil ecosystems by increasing the C and N content and strengthening bacterial associations in tea plantations. Overall, this study provides a comprehensive understanding of the impact of land-use change and long-term monoculture stand age on soil environments in tea plantation.

SUBMITTER: Gui H

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9263701 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:Background Alley-cropping systems in the temperate zone are a type of agroforestry in which rows of fast-growing trees are alternated with rows of annual crops. With numerous environmental benefits, temperate agroforestry is considered a promising alternative to conventional agriculture and soil fungi may play a key in maintaining productivity of these systems. Agroforestry systems that are established for more than 10 years have shown to increase the fungal biomass and impact the composition of soil fungal communities. Investigations of soil fungi in younger temperate agroforestry systems are scarce and the temporal dynamic of these changes is not understood. Methods Our study was conducted in a young poplar-based alley cropping and adjacent monoculture cropland system in an Arenosol soil in north-west Germany. We investigated the temporal dynamics of fungal populations after the establishment of agroforestry by collecting soil samples half, one, and one and a half years after conversion of cropland to agroforestry. Samples were collected within the agroforestry tree row, at 1, 7, and 24 m distance from the tree row within the crop row, and in an adjacent conventional monoculture cropland. The biomass of soil fungi, Asco-, and Basidiomycota was determined by real-time PCR. Soil fungal community composition and diversity were obtained from amplicon sequencing. Results Differences in the community composition of soil fungi in the tree row and arable land were detected as early as half a year following the conversion of monoculture cropland to agroforestry. In the tree row, soil fungal communities in the plots strongly diverged with the age of the system. The presence of young trees did not affect the biomass of soil fungi. Conclusions The composition of soil fungal communities responded rapidly to the integration of trees into arable land through agroforestry, whereas the fungal biomass was not affected during the first one and a half years after planting the trees. Fungal communities under the trees gradually diversified. Adaptation to spatially heterogeneous belowground biomass of the trees and understory vegetation or stochastic phenomena due to limited exchange among fungal populations may account for this effect; long-term monitoring might help unravelling the cause.

Project description:Soil microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi play important roles in the biogeochemical cycling of soil nutrients, because they act as decomposers or are mutualistic or antagonistic symbionts, thereby influencing plant growth and health. In the present study, we investigated the vertical distribution of the soil microbiome to a depth of 2 m in Swiss drought-exposed forests of European beech and oaks on calcareous bedrock. We aimed to disentangle the effects of soil depth, tree (beech, oak), and substrate (soil, roots) on microbial abundance, diversity, and community structure. With increasing soil depth, organic carbon, nitrogen, and clay content decreased significantly. Similarly, fine root biomass, microbial biomass (DNA content, fungal abundance), and microbial alpha-diversity decreased and were consequently significantly related to these physicochemical parameters. In contrast, bacterial abundance tended to increase with soil depth, and the bacteria to fungi ratio increased significantly with greater depth. Tree species was only significantly related to the fungal Shannon index but not to the bacterial Shannon index. Microbial community analyses revealed that bacterial and fungal communities varied significantly across the soil layers, more strongly for bacteria than for fungi. Both communities were also significantly affected by tree species and substrate. In deep soil layers, poorly known bacterial taxa from Nitrospirae, Chloroflexi, Rokubacteria, Gemmatimonadetes, Firmicutes and GAL 15 were overrepresented. Furthermore, archaeal phyla such as Thaumarchaeota and Euryarchaeota were more abundant in subsoils than topsoils. Fungal taxa that were predominantly found in deep soil layers belong to the ectomycorrhizal Boletus luridus and Hydnum vesterholtii. Both taxa are reported for the first time in such deep soil layers. Saprotrophic fungal taxa predominantly recorded in deep soil layers were unknown species of Xylaria. Finally, our results show that the microbial community structure found in fine roots was well represented in the bulk soil. Overall, we recorded poorly known bacterial and archaeal phyla, as well as ectomycorrhizal fungi that were not previously known to colonize deep soil layers. Our study contributes to an integrated perspective on the vertical distribution of the soil microbiome at a fine spatial scale in drought-exposed forests.

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Variations in Soil Nutrient Dynamics and Bacterial Communities After the Conversion of Forests to Long-Term Tea Monoculture Systems.

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