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Effects of Plant Functional Group Loss on Soil Microbial Community and Litter Decomposition in a Steppe Vegetation

Globally, many terrestrial ecosystems are experiencing a rapid loss of biodiversity. Continued improvements in our understanding of interrelationships between plant diversity and soil microbes are critical to address the concern over the consequences of the decline in biodiversity on ecosystem funct...

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Autores principales: Xiao, Chunwang, Zhou, Yong, Su, Jiaqi, Yang, Fan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5712412/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29234343
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2017.02040
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author Xiao, Chunwang
Zhou, Yong
Su, Jiaqi
Yang, Fan
author_facet Xiao, Chunwang
Zhou, Yong
Su, Jiaqi
Yang, Fan
author_sort Xiao, Chunwang
collection PubMed
description Globally, many terrestrial ecosystems are experiencing a rapid loss of biodiversity. Continued improvements in our understanding of interrelationships between plant diversity and soil microbes are critical to address the concern over the consequences of the decline in biodiversity on ecosystem functioning and services. By removing forbs, or grasses, or, to an extreme scenario, both forbs and grasses in a steppe vegetation in Inner Mongolia, we studied how plant functional group (PFG) loss affects soil microbial community composition using phospholipid fatty acid analysis (PLFA) and litter decomposition using a litter-bag method. PFG loss significantly decreased above- and below-ground plant biomass, soil microbial biomass carbon (SMBC) and nitrogen (SMBN), but had no effect on the ratio of SMBC to SMBN. Although the ratio of fungal to bacterial PLFAs remained unaffected, PFG loss significantly reduced the amount of bacterial, fungal, and total PLFAs. PFG loss decreased litter monthly mass loss and decay constant, and such decrease was significant when both forbs and grasses were removed. Our results provide robust evidence that PFG loss in grassland ecosystem can lead to a rapid response of soil microbial activity which may affect litter decomposition and soil nutrient cycling, suggesting that the assessment of plant–microbe interactions in soils is an integral component of ecosystem response to biodiversity loss.
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spelling pubmed-57124122017-12-11 Effects of Plant Functional Group Loss on Soil Microbial Community and Litter Decomposition in a Steppe Vegetation Xiao, Chunwang Zhou, Yong Su, Jiaqi Yang, Fan Front Plant Sci Plant Science Globally, many terrestrial ecosystems are experiencing a rapid loss of biodiversity. Continued improvements in our understanding of interrelationships between plant diversity and soil microbes are critical to address the concern over the consequences of the decline in biodiversity on ecosystem functioning and services. By removing forbs, or grasses, or, to an extreme scenario, both forbs and grasses in a steppe vegetation in Inner Mongolia, we studied how plant functional group (PFG) loss affects soil microbial community composition using phospholipid fatty acid analysis (PLFA) and litter decomposition using a litter-bag method. PFG loss significantly decreased above- and below-ground plant biomass, soil microbial biomass carbon (SMBC) and nitrogen (SMBN), but had no effect on the ratio of SMBC to SMBN. Although the ratio of fungal to bacterial PLFAs remained unaffected, PFG loss significantly reduced the amount of bacterial, fungal, and total PLFAs. PFG loss decreased litter monthly mass loss and decay constant, and such decrease was significant when both forbs and grasses were removed. Our results provide robust evidence that PFG loss in grassland ecosystem can lead to a rapid response of soil microbial activity which may affect litter decomposition and soil nutrient cycling, suggesting that the assessment of plant–microbe interactions in soils is an integral component of ecosystem response to biodiversity loss. Frontiers Media S.A. 2017-11-28 /pmc/articles/PMC5712412/ /pubmed/29234343 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2017.02040 Text en Copyright © 2017 Xiao, Zhou, Su and Yang. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Plant Science
Xiao, Chunwang
Zhou, Yong
Su, Jiaqi
Yang, Fan
Effects of Plant Functional Group Loss on Soil Microbial Community and Litter Decomposition in a Steppe Vegetation
title Effects of Plant Functional Group Loss on Soil Microbial Community and Litter Decomposition in a Steppe Vegetation
title_full Effects of Plant Functional Group Loss on Soil Microbial Community and Litter Decomposition in a Steppe Vegetation
title_fullStr Effects of Plant Functional Group Loss on Soil Microbial Community and Litter Decomposition in a Steppe Vegetation
title_full_unstemmed Effects of Plant Functional Group Loss on Soil Microbial Community and Litter Decomposition in a Steppe Vegetation
title_short Effects of Plant Functional Group Loss on Soil Microbial Community and Litter Decomposition in a Steppe Vegetation
title_sort effects of plant functional group loss on soil microbial community and litter decomposition in a steppe vegetation
topic Plant Science
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5712412/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29234343
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2017.02040
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