Bacterial communities drive the resistance of soil multifunctionality to
land use change
Abstract
Bacterial communities play a key role in maintaining ecosystem
multifunctionality. With increasing land use intensity, soil
biogeochemical and microbial characteristics change significantly and
may influence the resulting multifunctionality of the ecosystem. The
relationship between soil microbial communities and resistance of
multiple ecosystem functions under land use change have not previously
been assessed in the Karst region of Southwest China. Soils from four
karst ecosystems (Primary forest; Secondary forest; Abandoned land;
Cultivated land) were analyzed for microbial communities as predictor of
multifunctional resistance to land use change by using high-throughput
sequencing, structural equation modelling and random forest modelling.
The resistance of Proteobacteria was highest in the forest, and the
resistance of Verrucomicrobia highest in the abandoned and cultivated
land. With increasing land use intensity, C-cycling functional
resistance decreased by 77%, nitrogen and phosphorus functional
resistance increased by 17% and 19% in abandoned land, compared to
secondary forest. Structural equation modellings suggested the bacteria
communities have the largest direct positive effect on multifunctional,
and N-related functional resistance. Among bacterial communities,
Verrucomicrobia and Chloroflexi were the two most important groups that
affected soil multifunctional resistance. Regrading specific ecosystem
function, Chthonomonadetes, Chloroflexia and OPB35_soil_group were the
best predictor of TOC,TN and TP, respectively. Our results suggest
strong links between microbial community composition and multifunctional
resistance in various karst ecosystems, and provide insights into the
importance of microbial community composition for recovering the
ecosystems following human intervention.