Natural restoration alters soil microbial community structure, but has contrasting effects on the diversity of bacterial and fungal assemblages in salinized grasslands

• Published in: The Science of the total environment 2023-09, Vol.891, p.164726-164726, Article 164726
• Main Authors: Wang, Weina, Liu, Huanjun, Chen, Lifei, Koorem, Kadri, Hu, Yingchao, Hu, Liang-Jun
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Bacteria; Community structure; Grassland; Grassland salinization; Microbiota; Natural restoration succession; Richness; Soil - chemistry; Soil microbial diversity; Soil Microbiology; Soil pH
• ISSN: 0048-9697; 1879-1026
• DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.164726

Natural restoration has often been considered an effective measure for rehabilitating degraded ecosystems. However, its impact on the structure and diversity of soil microbial communities, particularly within a salinized grassland during its restoration succession, remains unclear. In this study, we examined the effects of natural restoration on the Shannon-Wiener diversity index, Operational Taxonomic Units (OTU) richness, and structure of the soil microbial community of a sodic-saline grassland in China using high-throughput amplicon sequencing data from representative successional chronosequences. Our results indicated that natural restoration resulted in a significant mitigation of the grassland salinization (pH from 9.31 to 8.32 and electrical conductivity from 393.33 to 136.67 μs·cm−1) and a significant alteration of the soil microbial community structure of the grassland (p