The effects of climate on soil microbial diversity shift after intensive agriculture in arid and semiarid regions

In arid and semiarid desert areas, climate factors distinctly impact soil microbial community, which can also be greatly altered after agricultural practices at multiple spatial scales. However, it is still poorly unknown whether the effects of climate on soil microbial diversity change after intensive agriculture at a large spatial scale. To uncover this concern, we used time-interval archived soils, taken from paired desert and agricultural experiments at five field stations of the Chinese Ecosystem Research Network across northern China, and performed high-throughput sequencing. Herein, we discovered that the clustering pattern of soil microbial communities was influenced by precipitation at some extent in desert ecosystem, while not impacted by climate factors in agricultural ecosystem. In addition, the analyses on microbial communities presented that the effects of climate factors on the communities decreased after agricultural practices. Soil microbial richness was significantly correlated with environmental temperature in deserts (R = -0.39, P < 0.001) and croplands (R = 0.34, P = 0.004), while the coefficients were opposite; the richness-precipitation relationship was significant in deserts (R = 0.63, P < 0.001) while nonsignificant in croplands (R = -0.03, P = 0.815). Moreover, for the dominant microbial groups (the top 10 phyla), the relationships between their richness and climate factors differed in two land use types, and fewer significant correlations were observed in croplands. In summary, it can be indicated that the influences of climate on soil microbial communities are shifted after intensive agriculture, and the relations of the richness with climate factors are also weakened for both the total and dominant microbial groups. These results improve our comprehension about the effects of climate on soil microbial diversity after intensive agriculture in desert areas, which can help to project microbial diversity in varied land uses under the context of global climate changes.

Automated summary

Climate factors have a distinct impact on soil microbial community in arid and semiarid desert areas, but after intensive agriculture, the effects of climate on soil microbial diversity are weakened. The relationships between microbial richness and climate factors differ in different land use types, with fewer significant correlations observed in croplands.