Changes in Soil Bacterial Community Structure and Diversity of Pinus Tabuliformis Plantation after 65 Years of near-naturalization in North China

ABSTRACT

Our study investigates the effect of near-naturalization of plantations on soil physicochemical and bacterial features and the difference between soil layers in Baxianshan National Nature Reserve. Four stands were involved, including two forest types: near-naturalized and natural secondary forests, with the former classified into three stages. Soil physicochemical and bacterial properties were determined and analyzed. TC, TN contents and C/N ratio of the surface soil were higher than the corresponding lower layer. TC, TN contents decreased first and then increased with near-naturalization, lower than the natural secondary forests, while the C/N ratio was the opposite; total and endemic OTUs quantity was more in the surface layer than the lower and both increased with near-naturalization; the dominant phyla were Proteobacteria, Acidobacteria, Gemmatimonadetes, and verrucomicrobia, the relative abundance of Proteobacteria increased with near-naturalization while that of other dominant phyla decreased; the α-diversity increased on the whole during near-naturalization and was lower than the natural secondary forests except for Simpson and Shannon index; environmental factors significantly explained the bacterial α-diversity and community structure of natural secondary forests but not near-naturalized forests. This study helps fully understand the change characteristics and response mechanisms of soil bacterial community structure to the restoration of the plantation.

KEYWORDS:

• Near-Naturalization
• dominant phyla
• community structure
• α-diversity
• high throughput sequencing

Acknowledgments

Thanks to the staff of Baxianshan National Nature Reserve for their great help in the process of forest survey. We also thank the nature reserve scientific research fund for its support to the study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10549811.2022.2123359