Muhammad Atif Muneer1, Xiaoman Huang1, Wei Hou1, Yadong Zhang1, Yuanyang Cai2, Muhammad Zeeshan Munir3, Liangquan Wu1, Chaoyuan Zheng1. 1. College of Resources and Environment/International Magnesium Institute, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou 350002, China. 2. College of Plant Science, Jilin University, Changchun 130062, China. 3. College of Biological Science and Technology, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China.
Abstract
Soil fungi play a critical role in plant performance and soil nutrient cycling. However, the understanding of soil fungal community composition and functions in response to different nutrients management practices in red soils remains largely unknown. Here, we investigated the responses of soil fungal communities and functions under conventional farmer fertilization practice (FFP) and different nutrient management practices, i.e., optimization of NPK fertilizer (O) with soil conditioner (O + C), with lime and mushroom residue (O + L + M), and with lime and magnesium fertilizer (O + L + Mg). Illumina high-throughput sequencing was used for fungal identification, while the functional groups were inferred with FUNGuild. Nutrient management practices significantly raised the soil pH to 4.79-5.31 compared with FFP (3.69), and soil pH had the most significant effect (0.989 ***) on fungal communities. Predominant phyla, including Ascomycota, Basidiomycota, and Mortierellomycota were identified in all treatments and accounted for 94% of all fungal communities. The alpha diversity indices significantly increased under nutrients management practices compared with FFP. Co-occurrence network analysis revealed the keystone fungal species in the red soil, i.e., Ascomycota (54.04%), Basidiomycota (7.58%), Rozellomycota (4.55%), and Chytridiomycota (4.04%). FUNGuild showed that the relative abundance of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and ectomycorrhizal fungi was higher, while pathogenic fungi were lower under nutrient management practices compared with FFP. Our findings have important implications for the understanding of improvement of acidic soils that could significantly improve the soil fungal diversity and functioning in acidic soils.
Soil fungi play a critipan> class="Chemical">cal role in plant performance and soil nutrient cycling. However, the understanding of soil fungalcommunity composition and functions in response to different nutrients management practices in red soils remains largely unknown. Here, we investigated the responses of soil fungalcommunities and functions under conventional farmer fertilization practice (FFP) and different nutrient management practices, i.e., optimization of NPK fertilizer (O) with soil conditioner (O + C), with lime and mushroom residue (O + L + M), and with lime and magnesiumfertilizer (O + L + Mg). Illumina high-throughput sequencing was used for fungal identification, while the functional groups were inferred with FUNGuild. Nutrient management practices significantly raised the soil pH to 4.79-5.31 compared with FFP (3.69), and soil pH had the most significant effect (0.989 ***) on fungalcommunities. Predominant phyla, including Ascomycota, Basidiomycota, and Mortierellomycota were identified in all treatments and accounted for 94% of all fungalcommunities. The alpha diversity indices significantly increased under nutrients management practices compared with FFP. Co-occurrence network analysis revealed the keystone fungal species in the red soil, i.e., Ascomycota (54.04%), Basidiomycota (7.58%), Rozellomycota (4.55%), and Chytridiomycota (4.04%). FUNGuild showed that the relative abundance of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and ectomycorrhizal fungi was higher, while pathogenic fungi were lower under nutrient management practices compared with FFP. Our findings have important implications for the understanding of improvement of acidic soils that could significantly improve the soil fungal diversity and functioning in acidic soils.
Entities:
Keywords:
FUNGuild; community composition; diversity; fungi; nutrients management; red soil; soil property