Chin J Plant Ecol ›› 2026, Vol. 50 ›› Issue (4): 846-858.DOI: 10.17521/cjpe.2025.0108  cstr: 32100.14.cjpe.2025.0108

• Research Articles • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Impacts of soil microorganisms on survival and growth traits of different mycorrhizal tree seedlings in tropical secondary forest restoration

FENG Yi-Fan, ZHU Shi-Ying, ZHOU Shu-Rong, JIANG Le-Le, CHEN Long, WANG Miao, DENG Guo-Fang, LIU Lan*()   

  1. Key Laboratory of Agro-Forestry Environmental Processes and Ecological Regulation of Hainan Province, School of Ecology, Hainan University, Haikou 570228, China
  • Received:2025-03-25 Accepted:2025-08-25 Online:2026-04-20 Published:2026-07-15
  • Contact: LIU Lan
  • Supported by:
    Hainan Provincial Natural Science Foundation(322RC581)

Abstract:

Aims Soil microorganisms play a key role in plant community dynamics. However, it remains unclear how these microorganisms influence survival and growth traits of different mycorrhizal tree species, and whether these effects vary with vegetation restoration stages, especially in tropical forest ecosystems.

Methods This study selected seedlings of three arbuscular mycorrhizal and three ectomycorrhizal tropical tree species. These seedlings were pre-inoculated with mycorrhizal fungi by planting them into natural tropical rainforest soil. Using sterilization treatments, we investigated the effects of microbial presence/absence on seedling survival and growth traits in soils from early (approximately 20 years) and late (approximately 60 years) vegetation restoration stages.

Important findings 1) Sterilization significantly increased the survival rate of arbuscular mycorrhizal seedlings in early-stage soils but reduced the survival rate of ectomycorrhizal seedlings in late-stage soils. Meanwhile, sterilization significantly increased the specific leaf area, leaf length and leaf width of arbuscular mycorrhizal seedlings in early stage, and leaf dry mass, leaf width and mycorrhizal infection rate of seedlings in late stage, while reducing leaf thickness and mean root diameter in early stage. In addition, sterilization significantly reduced the specific leaf area and mean root diameter of ectomycorrhizal seedlings in early stage. Under unsterilized conditions, above-ground biomass, leaf dry mass, leaf length, and root surface area in later stage increased. 2) With increasing plant density, the influence of soil microorganisms on seedling traits in early stage was stronger than that in late stage. In unsterilized soil, high density significantly promoted leaf dry mass, leaf length, and leaf width, whereas in sterilized soil, most traits, except specific leaf area, were suppressed. Furthermore, differences in the survival rates and growth traits varied significantly among tree species. Therefore, the influence of soil microorganisms on the survival and growth traits of seedlings varies with mycorrhizal types, restoration stages, and planting densities. Taking these factors into account to reduce the potential adverse effects of soil microorganisms may help increase the success rate of tropical forest vegetation restoration.

Key words: tropical forest, soil microbes, functional traits, conspecific density, competition