| Title | Soil fungal communities of montane natural secondary forest types in China |
|---|---|
| Author | Fei Cheng1, Xin Wei1, Lin Hou1,2, Zhengchun Shang1, Xiaobang Peng3, Peng Zhao4, Zhaoxue Fei1, and Shuoxin Zhang1,2* |
| Address | 1College of Forestry, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, P. R. China, 2Qinling National Forest Ecosystem Research Station, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, P. R. China, 3Department of Biological and Medical Engineering, Shangluo University, Shangluo, Shaanxi 726000, P. R. China, 4College of Life Science, Northwest University, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710069, P. R. China |
| Bibliography | Journal of Microbiology, 53(6),379-389, 2015, |
| DOI | 10.1007/s12275-015-4722-3 |
| Key Words | natural secondary forest types, soil fungi, community composition, diversity, T-RFLP |
| Abstract | Distinctive plant communities may provide specific physical and chemical properties with soils by specific litters and root exudates to exert effects on soil microorganisms. Past logging activities in the Qinling Mountains induced diverse natural secondary forest types (NSFTs). How these recovered NSFTs regulate patterns of soil microbial communities remain limited. In the study, we used terminal-restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) to precisely determine forest type-specific soil fungal diversity and composition in five NSFTs. Our results indicated that NSFTs had significant impacts on the soil fungal communities. The most diverse fungal species were found in the Armand pine (Pinus armandi) and Chinese pine (Pinus tabulaeformis) forest soils, followed by sharptooth oak (Quercus aliena var. acuteserrata) and Chinese pine-sharptooth oak forest soils, the wilson spruce (Picea wilsonii) forests had the lowest soil fungal diversity. The analyses of community composition suggested that the fungal communities of Armand pine forest soils were similar to those of Chinese pine forest soils, while other communities prominently differed from each other. Stepwise multiple regression analysis revealed that soil silt, clay, pH, and ammonium nitrogen had intimate linkages with soil fungal diversity. Furthermore, the patterns of soil fungal communites were strongly governed by the specific soil environments of the tested NSFTs, as described by canonical correspondence analysis (CCA). Finally, our study showed that soil fungal communities may be mediated by NSFTs via specific soil edaphic status. Hence, such a comparable study may provide fundamental information for fungal diversity and community structure of natural forests and assist with better prediction and understanding how soil fungal composition and function alter with forest type transformation. |