How Does Land Consolidation Affect Soil Fungal Community Structure? Take Heavy Metal Contaminated Areas in Eastern China for Example

Yaoben Lin, Haoran Yang, Yanmei Ye, Jiahao Wen and Danling Chen
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Yaoben Lin: School of Law and Politics, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing 211816, China
Haoran Yang: School of Law and Politics, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing 211816, China
Yanmei Ye: Land Academy for National Development (LAND), Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
Jiahao Wen: Department of Watershed Sciences, Utah State University, Logan, UT 84321, USA
Danling Chen: Department of Land Management, College of Public Administration, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China

Land, 2022, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-28

Abstract: Farmland land consolidation can effectively improve the quality of farmland soil and the agricultural production level, and can effectively guarantee farmland ecology and food security, which has been widely used in the world. A large number of studies have shown that farmland consolidation has certain adjustments to the basic physical and chemical properties of soil and the content of heavy metals. As a key indicator of soil quality and ecological conditions, soil microorganisms play an important role in soil pollution restoration and the promotion of crop growth. However, there are few domestic and foreign studies on how farmland consolidation affects soil microbial properties, and there are no related reports on the mechanism of action between them, which is a blank in the field of agricultural land consolidation and soil microecology, especially in heavy metal contaminated areas. Therefore, we used the DNA sequence technology to compare fungal community structure in farmlands with and without consolidation in heavy metal contaminated areas. Our results showed that (1) farmland consolidation had a significant impact on soil microbial characteristics, which were mainly manifested as changes in microbial biomass, microbial diversity and community structure. (2) Farmland consolidation had an indirect impact on soil fungal community structure by adjusting the soil physical and chemical properties. (3) The impact of heavy metals on the fungal community structure varied significantly under different levels of heavy metal pollution in farmland consolidation areas. When the pollution was at the highest level, there existed 7 fungus genera showing a strong tolerance to heavy metals and consuming a lot of soil nutrients, of which were Melanospora , Pseudeurotium , Guehomyces , Schizothecium , Gibberella , Myrothecium , and Neurospora. In this study, an analytical method was proposed to analyze the effects of farmland consolidation on soil fungi, and the mechanism was discussed from two aspects—soil physical and chemical properties, and heavy metal content. The results shed some light on farmland consolidation, cultivated land quality evaluation and territorial space ecological restoration.

Keywords: farmland consolidation; cultivated land quality; soil basic physical and chemical properties; heavy metals; fungi (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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