Abstract:
Objective There exists significant differences in soil organic carbon and microbial community structure between forest and cropland ecosystems. It is possible to clarify the response of soil microbial communities to changes in habitat climate in order to predict the transient response of ecosystems to changing environmental conditions.
Method Soil translocation experiments were set up between forest and cropland ecosystems in the the northern of China. The study explored the microbial community structure after cropland soil translocated to forest ecosystem and forest soil translocated to cropland ecosystem for two years using biomarker-phospholipid fatty acids, and analyzed the edaphic factors for to investigate the relationships between the alteration of microbial community structure and edaphic factors under changed climate habitats in forest and cropland ecosystems.
Result ① The biomass of all microbial groups in the topsoil decreased significantly after the forest soil translocated to the cropland ecosystem (P < 0.05). Specially, the total microbial biomass, bacterial biomass, fungal biomass, gram-negative bacterial biomass, gram-positive bacterial biomass and actinomycete biomass decreased 28.2%, 27.9%, 44.1%, 39.6%, 18.8% and 19.8% respectively. In the subsoil, only gram-negative bacterial biomass significantly reduced (P < 0.05). ② For the cropland soil translocated to the forest ecosystem, general increased in the biomass of all microbial groups at the topsoil, significantly decreased in total microbial and actinomycete biomass at subsoil (P < 0.05). ③The redundancy analysis showed that there was a significant correlation between the changes in soil microbial communisty structure and edaphic factors. The contribution of soil moisture to microbial community structure was from 27.5% to 50.9%.
Conclusion Overall, the effect of cropland environment on forest soil microorganisms is more stronger than the influence of forest ecosystem on cropland microbial community structure. Soil moisture is the predominated to influence soil microbial community structure.