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Journal of Arid Land
Journal of Arid Land  2024, Vol. 16 Issue (3): 431-446    DOI: 10.1007/s40333-024-0009-z
Research article     
Effects of long-term fencing on soil microbial community structure and function in the desert steppe, China
PAN Yaqing1, KANG Peng2, QU Xuan2, RAN Yichao2, LI Xinrong1,*()
1Shapotou Desert Research and Experiment Station, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China
2School of Biological Science and Engineering, North Minzu University, Yinchuan 750021, China
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Abstract  

One of the goals of grazing management in the desert steppe is to improve its ecosystem. However, relatively little is known about soil microbe communities in the desert steppe ecosystem under grazing management. In this study, we investigated the diversity and aboveground biomass of Caragana korshinskii Kom. shrub communities in long-term fencing and grazing areas, combined with an analysis of soil physical-chemical properties and genomics, with the aim of understanding how fence management affects plant-soil-microbial inter-relationships in the desert steppe, China. The results showed that fence management (exclosure) increased plant diversity and aboveground biomass in C. korshinskii shrub area and effectively enhanced soil organic carbon (233.94%), available nitrogen (87.77%), and available phosphorus (53.67%) contents. As well, the Shannon indices of soil bacteria and fungi were greater in the fenced plot. Plant-soil changes profoundly affected the alpha- and beta-diversity of soil bacteria. Fence management also altered the soil microbial community structure, significantly increasing the relative abundances of Acidobacteriota (5.31%-8.99%), Chloroflexi (3.99%-5.58%), and Glomeromycota (1.37%-3.28%). The soil bacterial-fungal co-occurrence networks under fence management had higher complexity and connectivity. Based on functional predictions, fence management significantly increased the relative abundance of bacteria with nitrification and nitrate reduction functions and decreased the relative abundance of bacteria with nitrate and nitrite respiration functions. The relative abundances of ecologically functional fungi with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, ectomycorrhizal fungi, and saprotrophs also significantly increased under fence management. In addition, the differential functional groups of bacteria and fungi were closely related to plant-soil changes. The results of this study have significant positive implications for the ecological restoration and reconstruction of dry desert steppe and similar areas.

Key words： desert steppe      fence management      Caragana korshinskii      soil physical-chemical property      soil microorganism     
Received: 01 November 2023      Published: 31 March 2024
Corresponding Authors: *LI Xinrong (E-mail: lxinrong@lzb.ac.cn)
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The first and the second authors contributed equally to this work.
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PAN Yaqing, KANG Peng, QU Xuan, RAN Yichao, LI Xinrong. Effects of long-term fencing on soil microbial community structure and function in the desert steppe, China. Journal of Arid Land, 2024, 16(3): 431-446.

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http://jal.xjegi.com/10.1007/s40333-024-0009-z     OR     http://jal.xjegi.com/Y2024/V16/I3/431

Fig. 1 Study area (a) and study plots (b and c) in the Otog Front Banner, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China
Fig. S1 Sampling diagram of Caragana korshinskii Kom. shrub in the desert steppe
Fig. 2 Plant community indices (a) of Caragana korshinskii shrub and their correlation with soil physical-chemical properties of the GRA (b) and FEN (c) plots in the desert steppe. GRA, grazing; FEN, fencing. In Figure 1a, different lowercase letters indicate significant differences between the two plots at P<0.050 level. Lines in the box are median values. Bars are standard errors. *, P<0.050 level; **, P<0.010 level; ***, P<0.001 level. AGB, above-ground biomass; SWC, soil water content; EC, electrical conductivity; TC, total carbon; TN, total nitrogen; TP, total phosphorus; SOC, soil organic carbon; AN, available nitrogen; AP, available phosphorus. The abbreviations are the same in the following figures.
Soil physical-chemical property GRA FEN
pH 8.84±0.02a 8.65±0.01b
SWC 13.87±0.56a 14.41±0.64a
EC (μS/cm) 74.37±2.57a 64.08±1.62b
TC (g/kg) 4.23±0.22b 9.31±0.50a
TN (g/kg) 0.28±0.005b 0.40±0.025a
TP (g/kg) 0.12±0.005b 0.22±0.012a
SOC (g/kg) 0.63±0.05b 2.11±0.12a
SOC/TN 2.82±0.16b 5.33±0.22a
SOC/TP 5.41±0.38b 9.61±0.62a
TN/TP 2.40±0.11a 1.81±0.11b
AN (mg/kg) 6.22±0.37b 11.68±0.99a
AP (mg/kg) 1.26±0.08b 1.94±0.14a
Table 1 Soil physical-chemical properties of the GRA and FEN plots in the desert steppe
Fig. 3 Alpha- and beta-diversity of soil bacterial (a1-a3 and c) and fungal (b1-b3 and d) communities of the GRA and FEN plots in the desert steppe. In Figure 3a and b, different lowercase letters indicate significant differences between the two plots at P<0.050 level. Lines in the box are median values. Bars are standard errors. OTUs, operational taxonomic units; ACE, abundance-based coverage estimator; NMDS, non-metric multidimensional scaling.
Fig. 4 Relative abundance of bacteria (a) and fungi (b) greater than 1% at the phylum level, and the difference of relative abundance of bacteria (c) and fungi (d) of the GRA and FEN plots in the desert steppe. Bars are standard errors.
Fig. 5 Co-occurrence network of soil bacteria and fungi of the GRA (a) and FEN (b) plots in the desert steppe
Network parameter GRA FEN
Node 1311 1715
Edge 2926 3706
Positive edge 2216 1965
Negative edge 710 1741
Number of modules 201 187
Modularity 0.76 0.77
Average path length 7.32 7.51
Graph diameter 18.42 21.33
Clustering coefficient 0.33 0.33
Degree centralization 0.015 0.007
Table 2 Network topological features of the GRA and FEN plots in the desert steppe
Fig. 6 RDA (redundancy analysis) of plant community indices (a) and soil physical-chemical properties (b) of the GRA and FEN plots in the desert steppe
Functional taxa GRA FEN P-value Q-value Interval lower limit Interval upper limit
Mean SD Mean SD
Aerobic ammonia oxidation 0.0099 0.0076 0.0349 0.0162 0.0014 -0.0279 -0.0380 -0.0118
Nitrification 0.0099 0.0076 0.0349 0.0162 0.0014 -0.0279 -0.0380 -0.0119
Denitrification 0.0012 0.0009 0.0003 0.0002 0.0219 -0.0279 0.0002 0.0016
Nitrite respiration 0.0023 0.0011 0.0008 0.0008 0.0040 -0.0279 0.0006 0.0025
Fermentation 0.0096 0.0042 0.0058 0.0014 0.0273 -0.0279 0.0005 0.0070
Aerobic chemoheterotrophy 0.1611 0.0526 0.1103 0.0078 0.0200 -0.0279 0.0103 0.0914
Human pathogens septicemia 0.0001 0.0001 0.0000 0.0035 0.0433 -0.0279 0.0003 0.0002
Animal parasites or symbionts 0.0066 0.0031 0.0034 0.0019 0.0232 -0.0279 0.0005 0.0059
Plant pathogen 0.0001 0.0001 0.0002 0.0026 0.0206 -0.0279 0.0002 0.0002
Aromatic hydrocarbon degradation 0.0003 0.0090 0.0069 0.0042 0.0077 -0.0279 0.0001 0.0003
Aromatic compound degradation 0.0081 0.0042 0.0044 0.0007 0.0266 -0.0279 0.0006 0.0070
Aliphatic non methane hydrocarbon degradation 0.0002 0.0093 0.0063 0.0037 0.0027 -0.0279 0.0005 0.0002
Hydrocarbon degradation 0.0003 0.0086 0.0069 0.0042 0.0041 -0.0279 0.0001 0.0003
Nitrate respiration 0.0026 0.0011 0.0010 0.0007 0.0021 -0.0279 0.0007 0.0026
Nitrate reduction 0.0229 0.0070 0.0424 0.0107 0.0004 -0.0279 -0.0287 -0.0105
Nitrogen respiration 0.0028 0.0009 0.0010 0.0007 0.0002 -0.0279 0.0010 0.0026
Ureolysis 0.0105 0.0062 0.0029 0.0014 0.0064 -0.0279 0.0027 0.0123
Chemoheterotrophy 0.1751 0.0599 0.1161 0.0074 0.0183 -0.0279 0.0128 0.1051
Animal pathogen-Plant pathogen- Soil saprotroph-Undefined saprotroph 0.0002 0.0002 0.0016 0.0014 0.0223 0.0530 -0.0024 -0.0003
Arbuscular mycorrhizal 0.0136 0.0075 0.0328 0.0138 0.0031 0.0114 -0.0305 -0.0078
Ectomycorrhizal 0.0055 0.0054 0.0486 0.0463 0.0235 0.0530 -0.0788 -0.0074
Endophyte-Plant pathogen-Wood saprotroph 0.0070 0.0086 0.0003 0.0001 0.0025 0.0114 -0.0003 -0.0078
Plant pathogen 0.1481 0.1355 0.0325 0.0227 0.0341 0.0640 0.0110 0.2202
Table S1 Differential functional taxa of bacterial and fungal communities of the GRA and FEN plots in the desert steppe
Fig. 7 Spearman's correlation of differential functioning of soil bacteria and fungi with soil physical-chemical properties of the GRA (a) and FEN (b) plots in the desert steppe. *, P<0.050 level, **, P<0.010 level.
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[6] LIU Yabin, SHI Chuan, YU Dongmei, WANG Shu, PANG Jinghao, ZHU Haili, LI Guorong, HU Xiasong. Characteristics of root pullout resistance of Caragana korshinskii Kom. in the loess area of northeastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, China[J]. Journal of Arid Land, 2022, 14(7): 811-823.
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