Responses of soil bacterial and fungal communities to precipitation in the desert steppe ecosystem of Ningxia

doi:10.11686/cyxb2023001

Abstract

Abstract:

Bacteria and fungi are the most important soil microbial groups， but their response mechanism to precipitation change in desert grassland ecosystems remains unclear. We investigated the response mechanism of soil bacterial and fungal communities to long-term precipitation differences in the desert grassland of Ningxia. Four national monitoring sites with different precipitation characteristics in the desert grassland of Ningxia were selected for study. Precipitation treatments were： 231 （T₀）， 154 （T₁）， 137 （T₂） and 114 mm （T₃） annually. Using the IonS5^TMXL high-throughput sequencing method， the differences in bacterial and fungal populations in soil under the long-term precipitation regime changes in desert grassland were investigated. It was found that bacterial and fungal operational taxonomic units （OTUs） generally showed an initial increase and then a decreasing trend with progressive decrease in precipitation along the treatment gradient. Proteobacteria， Actinobacteria and Acidobacteria were the predominant bacteria soil communities at the phylum level， and Ascomycota and Basidiomycota were the predominant fungal communities in this desert grassland. Differences in precipitation significantly affected the relative abundance of dominant bacteria （Proteobacteria， Actinobacteria and Acidobacteria） and non-dominant bacteria （Verrucomicrobia） at the phylum level， and also the relative abundance of Glomeromycota （P<0.05）， but did not significantly affect the relative abundance of the predominant fungal communities （Ascomycota， Basidiomycota）. Compared with treatment T₀， the richness indexes （Chao1 index and ACE index） of bacteria and fungi were significantly higher in treatments T₁， T₂ and T₃， and the Shannon-Wiener diversity index of bacteria was also significantly higher. However， the Shannon-Wiener diversity index of fungi was not significantly affected. The total nitrogen and available phosphorus were the most important environmental factors driving bacterial community change， and total phosphorus and soil organic matter （OM） were the driving environmental factors for fungal community change. Plant factors （plant biomass） and soil factors （soil nutrients） were considered together and their role in the regulation processes of bacterial and fungal communities in soil under the influence of precipitation was examined. The soil factors played an important role in controlling the different responses of the soil bacterial and fungal communities. So， we concluded that the soil bacterial and fungal communities have different response mechanisms to changes in biotic and abiotic factors caused by precipitation differences. These different response mechanisms underpin the different adaptation strategies of bacterial and fungal communities in desert grassland.

Key words: desert steppe, precipitation change, microbial communities, adaptation strategies

Yang MI, Rong GUO, Yuan WANG, Zhan-jun WANG, Qi JIANG, Hong-qian YU, Kun MA. Responses of soil bacterial and fungal communities to precipitation in the desert steppe ecosystem of Ningxia[J]. Acta Prataculturae Sinica, 2023, 32(11): 81-92.

Figures/Tables 6

Fig.1 Venn diagram of the number of shared and unique bacterial （a） and fungal （b） OTUs in the different treatments

Fig.2 Differences in the relative abundance of soil bacterial （a） and fungal （b） communities on the phylum level

Table 1 Effects on the precipitation in bacterial and fungal community diversity in desert grassland soils

处理Treatment	细菌群落Bacterial communities				真菌群落Fungal communities
处理Treatment	Chao1指数 Chao1 index	ACE指数 ACE index	香农-维纳指数Shannon-Wiener index	辛普森指数Simpson index	Chao1指数 Chao1 index	ACE指数 ACE index	香农-维纳指数Shannon-Wiener index	辛普森指数 Simpson index
T₀	3078.13±377.02b	3166.68±375.60b	7.95±1.90b	0.90±0.14a	895.18±177.42b	931.83±190.37b	5.30±0.64a	0.91±0.03a
T₁	3606.96±246.43a	3693.69±243.12a	9.55±0.14a	0.99±0.01a	1200.60±206.12a	1246.61±198.87a	6.18±0.59a	0.95±0.01a
T₂	3590.49±324.97a	3669.84±342.74a	9.48±0.36a	0.99±0.01a	1063.61±149.12a	1094.62±153.05ab	5.50±0.93a	0.89±0.10a
T₃	3279.35±258.41a	3399.65±291.50a	9.26±0.20a	0.99±0.02a	1014.56±92.87a	1054.37±102.21ab	5.91±0.47a	0.93±0.02a

Fig.3 Non-metric multidimensional scaling analysis （NMDS） of bacteria （a） and fungi （b） in desert grasslands under different precipitation gradients

Fig.4 Redundancy analysis （RDA） based on soil bacterial community （a）， fungal community （b） and environmental factors under different precipitation gradients in desert grasslands

Fig.5 Structural equation model between biological and abiotic components of desert steppe ecosystem

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