Record ID No. |
5955 |
Author(s) |
Mao L.*, Pan J., Jiang S., Shi G., Qin M., Zhao Z., Zhang Q., An L., Feng H. and Liu Y. , 2019 |
Affiliation |
*MOE Key Laboratory of Cell Activities and Stress Adaptations, School of Life Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China. |
Title |
Arbuscular mycorrhizal community recovers faster than plant community in historically disturbed Tibetan grasslands. |
Source. Vol.(no):Page |
Soil Biology and Biochemistry. 134: 131-141. |
Categories |
|
Subjects |
Ecology |
Sub-subjects |
Disturbed land |
Host |
NA |
Organism |
NA |
Country |
China |
Abstracts |
The potential of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi in ecological restoration has been appreciated increasingly, yet the successional patterns of AM fungal community and their relatedness with plants and ecosystem functions during the recovery of degraded lands remain poorly understood. Here, we examined synchronously the root-associated AM fungal and plant communities as well as the ecosystem multifunctionality (EMF) in paired historically disturbed (topsoil was removed in the early 1980s) and undisturbed habitats of eight Tibetan grasslands. We found that, after three decades of natural recovery, AM fungal richness and community composition were similar in disturbed and undisturbed habitats, whereas vegetation coverage and plant species richness were still lower in disturbed habitat than that in undisturbed habitat. Higher abundance of AM plants was established in disturbed habitat, while the undisturbed habitat was dominated by less- or non-AM plant species. AM fungal species composition showed tight relationship with the species composition of all plants only in the disturbed habitat, while it was always correlated with the species composition of AM plants regardless of the historical disturbance. The EMF index was lower in disturbed habitat compared to that in undisturbed habitat, and it correlated positively with AM fungal richness in disturbed habitat. Our study shows that AM fungal community is more resilient to disturbance than plant community in Tibetan grasslands, and the findings suggest that rapid recovery of AM fungal community in degraded lands may potentially drive vegetation development and enhance ecosystem functions in the early stages of ecosystem recovery. |