Variations in Soil Nutrient Dynamics and Bacterial Communities After the Conversion of Forests to Long-Term Tea Monoculture Systems

authored by

Heng Gui, Lichao Fan, Donghui Wang, Peng Yan, Xin Li, Yinghua Pang, Liping Zhang, Kazem Zamanian, Lingling Shi, Jianchu Xu, Wenyan Han

Abstract

The soil microbial community is a key indicator to evaluate the soil health and productivities in agricultural ecosystems. Monoculture and conversions of forests to tea plantations have been widely applied in tea plantation globally, but long-term monoculture of tea plantation could lead to soil degradation and yield decline. Understanding how long-term monoculture systems influence the soil health and ecosystem functions in tea plantation is of great importance for soil environment management. In this study, through the comparison of three independent tea plantations across eastern China composed of varying stand ages (from 3 to 90 years after conversion from forest), we found that long-term tea monoculture led to significant increases in soil total organic carbon (TOC) and microbial nitrogen (MBN). Additionally, the structure, function, and co-occurrence network of soil bacterial communities were investigated by pyrosequencing 16S rRNA genes. The pyrosequencing analysis revealed that the structures and functions of soil bacterial communities were significantly affected by different stand ages, but sampling sites and land-use conversion (from forest to tea plantation) had stronger effects than stand age on the diversity and structure of soil bacterial communities. Soil bacterial diversity can be improved with increasing stand ages in tea plantation. Further RDA analysis revealed that the C and N availability improvement in tea plantation soils led to the variation of structure and function in soil bacterial communities. Moreover, co-occurrence network analysis of soil bacterial communities also demonstrated that interactions among soil bacteria taxa were strengthened with increasing stand age. Our findings suggest that long-term monoculture with proper managements could be beneficial to soil ecosystems by increasing the C and N content and strengthening bacterial associations in tea plantations. Overall, this study provides a comprehensive understanding of the impact of land-use change and long-term monoculture stand age on soil environments in tea plantation.

External Organisation(s)

Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences
Kunming Institute of Botany Chinese Academy of Sciences
University of Göttingen
Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of the Yuhang District
Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology

Type

Article

Journal

Frontiers in microbiology

Volume

13

ISSN

1664-302X

Publication date

24.06.2022

Publication status

Published

Peer reviewed

Yes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Microbiology, Microbiology (medical)

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 15 - Life on Land

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2022.896530 (Access: Open)