Succession of plant and soil microbial communities with restoration of abandoned land in the Loess Plateau, China

Purpose There have been a number of studies on the succession of vegetation; however, the succession of soil microbes and the collaborative relationships between microbes and vegetation during land restoration remain poorly understood. The objectives of this study were to characterize soil microbial succession and to explore the collaborative mechanisms between microbes and vegetation during the restoration of abandoned land through quantitative ecology methods. Materials and methods The present research was carried out in the succession of a 5-year abandoned land and its conversion to Hippophae rhamnoides shrubs, Larix principis-rupprechtii plantation, and a naturally regenerated forest (mixed forest). Soil bacterial, archaeal and fungal characteristics were tested by real-time quantitative PCR assays and terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism. The richness, diversity, and evenness indices were employed to analyze plant and microbial communities' structure. The stability of plant and microbial communities was tested using Spearman's rank correlation. The relationships between the regeneration scenarios and environmental factors were determined through canonical correspondence analysis. Results and discussion The aboveground biomass was significantly different among the sites. Soil bacterial, archaeal, and fungal rRNA gene abundances did not increase significantly with increasing soil organic carbon content. There were higher correlation coefficients between plant and total microbial communities on the richness, diversity, and evenness indices and ratios of positive to negative association compared to ones between plant and individual bacteria, archaea, and fungi. Soil bulk density, clay, pH, and litter were the primary significant environmental factors affecting the structure of plant and microbial communities. The positive relationships between plant and soil bacteria, fungi, and total microbe communities, as well as the negative relationships between plant and archaea, were demonstrated. Conclusions The results suggested that plants promote the growth of soil bacteria and fungi during the process of community succession on a small scale; however, plants inhibit the growth of soil archaea.