Soil Microbial Community and Its Interaction with Soil Carbon Dynamics Following a Wetland Drying Process in Mu Us Sandy Land

Huan He, Yixuan Liu, Yue Hu, Mengqi Zhang, Guodong Wang and Weibo Shen
Additional contact information
Huan He: College of Science, Northwest Agricultural and Forestry University, Yangling 712100, China
Yixuan Liu: College of Natural Resources and Environment, Northwest Agricultural and Forestry University, Yangling 712100, China
Yue Hu: College of Natural Resources and Environment, Northwest Agricultural and Forestry University, Yangling 712100, China
Mengqi Zhang: College of Natural Resources and Environment, Northwest Agricultural and Forestry University, Yangling 712100, China
Guodong Wang: College of Science, Northwest Agricultural and Forestry University, Yangling 712100, China
Weibo Shen: College of Natural Resources and Environment, Northwest Agricultural and Forestry University, Yangling 712100, China

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 12, 1-19

Abstract: Increasing drought globally is a severe threat to fragile desert wetland ecosystem. It is of significance to study the effects of wetland drying on microbial regulation of soil carbon (C) in the desert. In this study, we examined the impacts of wetland drying on microbial biomass, microbial community (bacteria, fungi) and microbial activity [basal microbial respiration, microbial metabolic quotient (qCO 2 )]. Relationships of microbial properties with biotic factors [litter, soil organic carbon (SOC), total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP)], abiotic factors (soil moisture, pH and clay content) and biological processes (basal microbial respiration, qCO 2 ) were also developed. Results showed that the drying of wetland led to a decrease of soil microbial biomass carbon (MBC) content, microbial biomass nitrogen (MBN) content and fungi and bacterial abundance, and an increase of the fungi:bacteria ratio. Wetland drying also led to increased soil basal respiration and increased qCO 2 , which was attributed to lower soil clay content and litter N concentration. The MBC:SOC ratios were higher under drier soil conditions than under virgin wetland, which was attributed to stronger C conserve ability of fungi than bacteria. The wetland drying process exacerbated soil C loss by strengthening heterotrophic respiration; however, the exact effects of soil microbial community structure on microbial C mineralization were not clear in this study and need further research.

Keywords: wetland drying; soil microbial biomass; microbial community structure; carbon mineralization; soil-microbial interaction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/12/4199/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/12/4199/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:12:p:4199-:d:370644

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().