Influences of warming and snow reduction in winter on soil nutrients and bacterial communities composition in a typical grassland of the Loess Plateau

doi:10.17521/cjpe.2021.0085

Abstract

Abstract:

Aims Variations in temperature and snow accumulations in winter will change the structure and function of the soil-microbial system. As a key biological factor in the terrestrial ecosystem, microorganisms play an important role in regulating soil nutrient cycles. However, they are very sensitive to environmental disturbances, especially to winter climate changes. It is in great need to study the response of soil nutrients and microbial properties of typical semi-arid grasslands to climate change in winter, in order to predict the ecological process and functional changes of grassland ecosystem in the long term.
Methods In the present study, the semi-arid grassland in the Yunwushan National Nature Reserve in Ningxia Province was taken as the research object. The four treatments including warming (W), snow reduction (S), interaction of warming and snow reduction (WS), and control (CK) were set to explore the responses of soil nutrients, enzyme activities and soil bacterial communities in the 0-5 cm soil layer of the typical grassland of the Loess Plateau to variations in winter temperature and snow cover.
Important findings Our results indicated that: (1) Warming, snow reduction and their interaction in winter increased the 0-5 cm soil temperature, lowered the relative humidity of the soil, but significantly increased the number of soil freeze-thaw cycles. (2) Compared with the control, other different treatments generally reduced the microbial biomass and bacterial diversity, which led to reduced activity of soil β-1,4-glucosidase (BG), β-1,4-N-acetylglucosaminidase (NAG) and alkaline phosphatase (AKP). The content of soil organic carbon, total nitrogen, available phosphorus, and nitrate nitrogen in the soil increased, while the content of nitrate nitrogen decreased. (3) The soil bacterial species in the study area were mainly Acidobacteria, Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria and Gemmatimonadetes. The dominant bacteria at the class level included Acidobacteria, γ-Proteobacteria, Thermophiles and σ-Proteobacteria. Redundancy analysis (RDA) results showed that available phosphorus (AP) content had the most significant impact on the bacterial community composition, with an explanation rate of 21.3% for the community variation. In conclusion, winter climate change can significantly affect soil temperature and humidity, especially the freezing and thawing cycles, which might further influence soil nutrients cycles, enzyme activities, and soil bacterial diversity. These results are of great significance for enriching and expanding the understanding of the process and mechanism of climate change on grassland ecosystem, as well as predicting the mid and long-term dynamic changes of typical grassland ecosystems.

Key words: soil nutrients, soil microorganisms, winter, warming, changes in snowfall

MAO Jin, DUO Ying, DENG Jun, CHENG Jie, CHENG Ji-Min, PENG Chang-Hui, GUO Liang. Influences of warming and snow reduction in winter on soil nutrients and bacterial communities composition in a typical grassland of the Loess Plateau[J]. Chin J Plant Ecol, 2021, 45(8): 891-902.

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Figures/Tables 9

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处理 Treatment	年份-月份 Year-month	冻融循环次数 Numbers of freeze-thaw cycle	总计 Sum
对照 CK	2018-11	2	29
	2018-12	0
	2019-01	0
	2019-02	8
	2019-03	19
增温 W	2018-11	7	53
	2018-12	22
	2019-01	0
	2019-02	24
	2019-03	0
减雪 S	2018-11	8	51
	2018-12	21
	2019-01	9
	2019-02	13
	2019-03	0
互作 WS	2018-11	2	61
	2018-12	16
	2019-01	14
	2019-02	23
	2019-03	6

处理 Treatment	年份-月份 Year-month	冻融循环次数 Numbers of freeze-thaw cycle	总计 Sum
对照 CK	2018-11	2	29
	2018-12	0
	2019-01	0
	2019-02	8
	2019-03	19
增温 W	2018-11	7	53
	2018-12	22
	2019-01	0
	2019-02	24
	2019-03	0
减雪 S	2018-11	8	51
	2018-12	21
	2019-01	9
	2019-02	13
	2019-03	0
互作 WS	2018-11	2	61
	2018-12	16
	2019-01	14
	2019-02	23
	2019-03	6

土壤指标 Soil indicator	对照 CK	增温 W	减雪 S	互作 WS	F	p
土壤有机碳含量 SOC content (g·kg^-1)	23.66 ± 1.87^b	30.92 ± 0.28^a	25.00 ± 0.94^b	25.15 ± 1.09^b	7.39	*
全氮含量 TN content (g·kg^-1)	2.47 ± 0.06^c	3.03 ± 0.03^a	2.97 ± 0.03^a	2.71 ± 0.02^b	47.28	***
速效磷含量 AP content (mg·kg^-1)	3.30 ± 0.15^c	3.97 ± 0.15^ab	4.17 ± 0.03^a	3.53 ± 0.2^bc	7.23	*
硝态氮含量 NO- 3-N content (mg·kg^-1)	6.33 ± 0.41^a	4.37 ± 0.12^b	6.40 ± 0.55^a	4.83 ± 0.24^b	7.93	**
铵态氮含量 NH+ 4-N content (mg·kg^-1)	3.90 ± 0.41^b	4.03 ± 0.12^b	3.33 ± 0.55^b	5.83 ± 0.24^a	4.73	*
pH	7.51 ± 0.02^a	7.51 ± 0.01^a	7.48 ± 0^a	7.52 ± 0.02^a	1.54	NS
微生物生物量碳含量 MBC content (mg·kg^-1)	820.08 ± 23.97^b	951.73 ± 6.91^a	807.58 ± 48.58^b	696.02 ± 17.49^c	13.33	**
微生物生物量氮含量 MBN content (mg·kg^-1)	63.48 ± 1.51^a	67.57 ± 2.57^a	61.39 ± 9.10^a	54.60 ± 1.26^a	1.26	NS
β-1,4-葡萄糖苷酶活性 BG activity (nmol·g^-1·h^-1)	203.37 ± 16.45^a	211.55 ± 13.82^a	197.87 ± 16.04^ab	157.08 ± 4.32^b	3.19	NS
β-1,4-N-乙酰基氨基葡萄糖苷酶活性 NAG activity (nmol·g^-1·h^-1)	76.85 ± 1.67^a	70.94 ± 2.33^a	74.33 ± 5.31^a	56.33 ± 1.63^b	8.64	**
碱性磷酸酶活性 AKP activity (nmol·g^-1·h^-1)	656.61 ± 14.04^a	642.68 ± 46.49^a	586.07 ± 30.72^ab	539.64 ± 4.12^b	3.60	NS

土壤指标 Soil indicator	对照 CK	增温 W	减雪 S	互作 WS	F	p
土壤有机碳含量 SOC content (g·kg^-1)	23.66 ± 1.87^b	30.92 ± 0.28^a	25.00 ± 0.94^b	25.15 ± 1.09^b	7.39	*
全氮含量 TN content (g·kg^-1)	2.47 ± 0.06^c	3.03 ± 0.03^a	2.97 ± 0.03^a	2.71 ± 0.02^b	47.28	***
速效磷含量 AP content (mg·kg^-1)	3.30 ± 0.15^c	3.97 ± 0.15^ab	4.17 ± 0.03^a	3.53 ± 0.2^bc	7.23	*
硝态氮含量 NO- 3-N content (mg·kg^-1)	6.33 ± 0.41^a	4.37 ± 0.12^b	6.40 ± 0.55^a	4.83 ± 0.24^b	7.93	**
铵态氮含量 NH+ 4-N content (mg·kg^-1)	3.90 ± 0.41^b	4.03 ± 0.12^b	3.33 ± 0.55^b	5.83 ± 0.24^a	4.73	*
pH	7.51 ± 0.02^a	7.51 ± 0.01^a	7.48 ± 0^a	7.52 ± 0.02^a	1.54	NS
微生物生物量碳含量 MBC content (mg·kg^-1)	820.08 ± 23.97^b	951.73 ± 6.91^a	807.58 ± 48.58^b	696.02 ± 17.49^c	13.33	**
微生物生物量氮含量 MBN content (mg·kg^-1)	63.48 ± 1.51^a	67.57 ± 2.57^a	61.39 ± 9.10^a	54.60 ± 1.26^a	1.26	NS
β-1,4-葡萄糖苷酶活性 BG activity (nmol·g^-1·h^-1)	203.37 ± 16.45^a	211.55 ± 13.82^a	197.87 ± 16.04^ab	157.08 ± 4.32^b	3.19	NS
β-1,4-N-乙酰基氨基葡萄糖苷酶活性 NAG activity (nmol·g^-1·h^-1)	76.85 ± 1.67^a	70.94 ± 2.33^a	74.33 ± 5.31^a	56.33 ± 1.63^b	8.64	**
碱性磷酸酶活性 AKP activity (nmol·g^-1·h^-1)	656.61 ± 14.04^a	642.68 ± 46.49^a	586.07 ± 30.72^ab	539.64 ± 4.12^b	3.60	NS

	Sha.	Chao1	Ric.	Aci.	Pro.	Act.	Gem.	Chl.	Pla.	Rok.	Ver.	Bac.
SOC	0.23	-0.26	-0.06	-0.36	0.19	0.36	-0.16	-0.09	-0.13	-0.14	0.19	0.22
TN	0.12	-0.14	-0.07	-0.23	0.36	0.17	-0.42	-0.05	-0.05	0.21	-0.09	0.00
AP	0.15	0.11	0.19	0.43	0.46	-0.28	-0.32	-0.10	-0.11	0.32	0.11	-0.02
NO- 3-N	0.47	0.80^*	0.78^**	0.54^*	0.32	-0.02	-0.08	-0.48	-0.16	-0.22	-0.23	-0.11
NH+ 4-N	-0.58^*	-0.45	-0.55^*	-0.27	-0.25	-0.20	-0.06	0.65^**	-0.02	0.39	0.48	0.09
pH	-0.08	-0.10	-0.19	0.01	0.02	-0.27	-0.01	-0.14	0.54^*	-0.10	-0.35	0.35
MBC	0.56^*	0.22	0.43	-0.07	0.38	0.43	-0.02	-0.54^*	-0.14	-0.43	-0.15	0.25
MBN	0.63^**	0.27	0.51^*	-0.16	0.70^**	0.16	-0.33	-0.40	0.04	-0.26	-0.20	0.40
BG	0.77^**	0.42	0.70^**	0.06	0.47	0.27	-0.11	-0.62^*	0.02	-0.47	-0.24	0.25
NAG	0.49	0.31	0.54^*	0.38	0.42	-0.01	0.05	-0.41	-0.12	-0.19	-0.20	0.04
AKP	0.56^*	0.35	0.49	-0.02	0.18	0.51^*	0.22	-0.61^*	-0.25	-0.66^**	-0.05	0.21