PJB-2024-488
Soil nutrient levels determine the factors that influence changes in the soil bacterial community in the Xilingol steppe, Inner Mongolia, China
Jincheng Zuo, Wenhao Dong, Xianwei Yin, Zhiwei Yang, Jieun Kim, Yanlin Sun, Liying Luan and Soon-Kwan Hong
Abstract
Soil bacteria play key roles in various ecosystems and mediate several important ecological processes. Understanding the factors determining soil bacterial community composition is critical for evaluating and forecasting ecosystem functions. However, the factors affecting soil bacterial community changes vary widely across different studies. Aims: Spatiotemporal heterogeneity and scale, the plant community, and soil properties are considered the factors driving changes in soil bacterial communities. However, the impacts of these factors on soil bacterial communities remain unclear. Therefore, the aim of this study was to elucidate the impact of these factors on soil bacterial communities. Three different grasslands were selected, and the abundance, diversity and composition of the soil bacterial communities were determined at three soil depths (topsoil: 0-10 cm, middle soil: 10-20 cm, and subsoil: 20-30 cm), as well as the corresponding vegetation and soil properties of the grasslands. Our results suggest that vegetation and soil properties can collectively influence soil bacterial communities; however, the dominant factors affecting soil bacterial changes differed at different soil nutrient levels. In low-nutrient grasslands (G1 and G3), changes in soil bacterial communities were closely linked with soil properties or vegetation characteristics; in high-nutrient grasslands (G2), changes were collectively affected by vegetation and soil properties. Conclusions: The findings of this study indicate that close and highly positive associations among plants, bacteria, and soil can be found only under nutrient-sufficient conditions
To Cite this article:
Zuo, J., W. Dong, X. Yin, Z. Yang, J. Kim, Y. Sun, L. Luan and S.K. Hong. 2025. Soil nutrient levels determine the factors that influence changes in the soil bacterial community in the Xilingol steppe, Inner Mongolia, China. Pak. J. Bot., 57(6): DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.30848/PJB2025-6(29)
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