Gui Heng, Fan Lichao, Wang Donghui, Yan Peng, Li Xin, Pang Yinghua, Zhang Liping, Zamanian Kazem, Shi Lingling, Xu Jianchu, Han Wenyan
Tea Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hangzhou, China.
Department of Economic Plants and Biotechnology, Yunnan Key Laboratory for Wild Plant Resources, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China.
Front Microbiol. 2022 Jun 24;13:896530. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2022.896530. eCollection 2022.
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.
土壤微生物群落是评估农业生态系统中土壤健康和生产力的关键指标。单一种植以及森林向茶园的转变在全球茶园中已被广泛应用，但茶园的长期单一种植可能导致土壤退化和产量下降。了解长期单一种植系统如何影响茶园的土壤健康和生态系统功能对于土壤环境管理至关重要。在本研究中，通过比较中国东部三个独立的、林龄不同（从森林转变为茶园后3至90年）的茶园，我们发现长期茶树单一种植导致土壤总有机碳（TOC）和微生物氮（MBN）显著增加。此外，通过对16S rRNA基因进行焦磷酸测序研究了土壤细菌群落的结构、功能和共现网络。焦磷酸测序分析表明，土壤细菌群落的结构和功能受不同林龄的显著影响，但采样地点和土地利用转变（从森林到茶园）对土壤细菌群落的多样性和结构的影响比林龄更强。茶园土壤细菌多样性会随着林龄增加而提高。进一步的冗余分析（RDA）表明，茶园土壤中碳和氮有效性的提高导致了土壤细菌群落结构和功能的变化。此外，土壤细菌群落的共现网络分析还表明，土壤细菌类群之间的相互作用随着林龄增加而增强。我们的研究结果表明，通过适当管理的长期单一种植可能通过增加茶园中的碳和氮含量以及加强细菌关联而对土壤生态系统有益。总体而言，本研究全面了解了土地利用变化和长期单一种植林龄对茶园土壤环境的影响。
