Divergent changes in microbial communities and nutrients upon forest
floor humus layer of the sandy Pinus sylvestris var. mongolica
plantation in Northeast of China
Abstract
The sandy Pinus sylvestris var. mongolica plantation that
as the boundary part of the Three North Shelterbelt Project in Northeast
China has been well protected and prohibited disturbance more than ten
years, and thus bring about lots of forest floor litter and then humus
layer. While humus layer accumulation that could change the interface
between litter and soil, its effects on litter and soil, and especially
the interaction among them were still poorly understood. Hence, three
different treatments that included remove all forest floor litter and
humus, double forest floor litter and humus layer, and retain forest
floor litter and humus original (no treatment) were conducted, and the
physicochemistry properties and microbial communities were monitored.
Results showed that the humus layer increased forest floor litter
decomposition rate and its total carbon, total nitrogen and total
phosphorus significantly, while it changed soil pH and nutrients
differently and slightly. The abundances of bacterial groups at
different taxonomic levels increased and while its diversity indexes
decreased in litter when the humus layer existed, however, the fungi
community both in litter and soil varied insignificantly. The humus
layer not only increased remarkably the proportions of common OTUs
between humus and litter, humus and soil compared to litter and soil
both for fungi and bacteria, but also decreased the differences of the
number of fungal and bacterial taxa statistics between litter and soil.
It implied that the humus layer could act an important role in the
recover process of degraded forest ecosystem.