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. 2024 Mar 15:15:1345235.
doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2024.1345235. eCollection 2024.

Soil microbial community are more sensitive to ecological regions than cropping systems in alpine annual grassland of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

Feng Luo  1   2 , Wenbo Mi  1   2 , Wenhui Liu  1   2 , Xiang Ma  1   2 , KaiQiang Liu  1   2 , Zeliang Ju  1   2 , Wen Li  1   2
Affiliations

Soil microbial community are more sensitive to ecological regions than cropping systems in alpine annual grassland of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

Feng Luo et al. Front Microbiol. .

Abstract

Introduction: Modern agriculture emphasizes the design of cropping systems using ecological function and production services to achieve sustainability. The functional characteristics of plants (grasses vs. legumes) affect changes in soil microbial communities that drive agroecosystem services. Information on the relationship between legume-grass mixtures and soil microorganisms in different ecological zones guides decision-making toward eco-friendly and sustainable forage production. However, it is still poorly understood how cropping patterns affect soil microbial diversity in alpine grasslands and whether this effect varies with altitude.

Methods: To fill this gap in knowledge, we conducted a field study to investigate the effects of growing oats (Avena sativa L.), forage peas (Pisum sativum L.), common cornflower (Vicia sativa L.), and fava beans (Vicia faba L.) in monocultures and mixtures on the soil microbial communities in three ecological zones of the high alpine zone.

Results: We found that the fungal and bacterial community structure differed among the cropping patterns, particularly the community structure of the legume mixed cropping pattern was very different from that of monocropped oats. In all ecological zones, mixed cropping significantly (p < 0.05) increased the α-diversity of the soil bacteria and fungi compared to oat monoculture. The α-diversity of the soil bacteria tended to increase with increasing elevation (MY [2,513 m] < HZ [2,661 m] < GN [3,203 m]), while the opposite was true for fungi (except for the Chao1 index in HZ, which was the lowest). Mixed cropping increased the abundance of soil fungi and bacteria across ecological zones, particularly the relative abundances of Nitrospira, Nitrososphaera, Phytophthora, and Acari. Factors affecting the bacterial community structure included the cropping pattern, the ecological zone, water content, nitrate-nitrogen, nitrate reductase, and soil capacity, whereas factors affecting fungal community structure included the cropping pattern, the ecological zone, water content, pH, microbial biomass nitrogen, and catalase.

Discussion: Our study highlights the variation in soil microbial communities among different in alpine ecological regions and their resilience to cropping systems. Our results also underscore that mixed legume planting is a sustainable and effective forage management practice for the Tibetan Plateau.

Keywords: Qinghai-Tibet Plateau; cropping systems; ecological regions; forage mixtures; soil microbial communities; soil microbial diversity.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
(A) Study area information. (B) Distribution of planting plots. (C) Field planting map. Y, oats unicast; YS, oats and forage peas mixed sowing; S, forage peas unicast; YJ, oats and common vetch mixed sowing; J, common vetch unicast; YC, oats and fava beans mixed sowing; C, fava beans unicast; HZ, Huangshui Valley; GN, Sanjiangyuan District; MY, Qilian Mountain Basin.
Figure 2
Figure 2
(A) Relative abundance at the bacterial phylum level in the different ecological regions (viewing the cropping systems. as a whole); (B) Relative abundance at the bacterial phylum level in the different cropping systems (considering the ecological regions as a whole); (C) Relative abundance of bacterial phyla in the different ecological regions under the different cropping systems; (D) Relative abundance of the bacterial genera in the different ecological regions under the different cropping patterns.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Relative abundance of fungal communities: (A) Relative abundance at the level of fungi phyla in different ecological regions (viewing the cropping systems. as a whole); (B) Relative abundance at the level of fungi phyla in different cropping systems (considering the ecological regions as a whole); (C) Relative abundance of fungi phyla in different ecological regions under different cropping systems; (D) Relative abundance of fungi genera in different ecological regions under different cropping patterns.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Dominant bacterial phyla in the different ecological regions and cropping patterns. (A) HZ; (B) GN; (C) MY.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Dominant fungal phyla in different ecological regions cropping patterns. (A) HZ, Huangshui Valley; (B) GN, Sanjiangyuan District; (C) MY, Qilian Mountain Basin. The bars show the standard errors. Lowercase letters represent the significant difference within the same ecological regions under different cropping systems, while uppercase letters indicate the significant difference within different ecological regions under the same cropping systems. Significance was employed at 0.05.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Bacterial Venn diagrams of the different ecological regions and different cropping systems. (A) Total number of OTUs in HZ, GN, and MY; (B) Number of OTUs in the cropping systems Y, YS, YJ, and YC in HZ; (C) Number of OTUs in the cropping systems Y, YS, YJ, and YC in GN; (D) Number of OTUs in the cropping systems Y, YS, YJ, and YC in MY.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Fungal Venn diagrams of the different ecological regions and different cropping systems. (A) Total number of OTUs in HZ, GN, and MY; (B) Number of OTUs in the cropping systems Y, YS, YJ, and YC in HZ; (C) Number of OTUs in the cropping systems Y, YS, YJ, and YC in GN; (D) Number of OTUs in the cropping systems Y, YS, YJ, and YC in MY.
Figure 8
Figure 8
NMDS analysis of the bacterial OTU levels. (A) HZ. (B) GN. (C) MY. (D) Relative differences in the bacterial community composition in three ecological regions.
Figure 9
Figure 9
Non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) analysis of the fungal OTU levels in the different ecological regions with different cropping systems. (A) Relative differences in the bacterial community composition in HZ. (B) Relative differences in the bacterial community composition in GN. (C) Relative differences in the bacterial community composition in MY.
Figure 10
Figure 10
Changes in soil bacteria in the oat monoculture and the mixed cropping patterns across ecological zones analyzed by LEfSe. (A) HZ; (B) GN; (C) MY.
Figure 11
Figure 11
Changes in soil fungal in the oat monoculture and the mixed cropping patterns across ecological zones analyzed by LEfSe. (A) HZ; (B) GN; (C) MY.
Figure 12
Figure 12
Typical correspondence analysis using pooled bacterial community data with the soil environmental factors (arrows). Values on axes 1 and 2 are the percentages that can be interpreted for the corresponding axes. (A) HZ; (B) GN; (C) MY.
Figure 13
Figure 13
Typical correspondence analysis using pooled fungal community data with the soil environmental factors (arrows). Values on axes 1 and 2 are the percentages that can be interpreted for the corresponding axes. (A) HZ; (B) GN; (C) MY.
Figure 14
Figure 14
Piecewise structural equation model (SEM) describing the effect of the cropping pattern on soil bacterial (A) and fungal (B) β-diversity in the different ecoregions. P, cropping pattern; R, ecoregion; SWC, soil water content; BD, soil bulk density; NN, soil ammonium-nitrogen; ANN, soil nitrate-nitrogen; MBN, soil microbial nitrogen; pH, Pondus Hydrogenii; ALPT, soil catalase.
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