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Forests
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World beneath Forests: Interactions between Soil Microbial Community and Trees
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World beneath Forests: Interactions between Soil Microbial Community and Trees

A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Forest Soil".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 July 2022) | Viewed by 4968

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Tiehang Wu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Biology, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA 30460, USA
Interests: soil microbial ecology; mycorrhizal fungi; nitrogen cycling; soilborne disease

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Forests represent highly productive ecosystems. Forest trees are known to live in close association with microbial organisms. The nature of this close association can be commensalism, parasitism, or mutualism, therefore greatly affecting forest health and productivity. Soil microbial communities, including fungi (both detrimental soilborne pathogenic and beneficial mycorrhizal fungi), bacteria, and archaea, play important roles in litter decomposition, soilborne disease, nutrient cycling, and the sustainability of forests. The words microbiota and microbiomes have been used to describe this ecological community of tree-associated pathogenic, mutualistic, and commensal microorganisms. Forest management practices and global environmental change caused by human activities affect microbial abundance, diversity, the level of dominance of bacteria or fungi, and the composition of their communities. A clear understanding of the interaction between microbial communities and trees in the regulation of decomposition, soilborne disease, and nutrient cycling processes using focused, intensive, and integrative microbiological and ecological research performed across multiple forest habitats will provide a fundamental basis for sustainable forest production. This Special Issue will lay emphasis on the interactions between soil microbial communities and trees, with a focus on the biology and ecology of soil microorganisms in litter decomposition, nutrient cycling, soilborne disease, and the sustainability of forests.

Dr. Tiehang Wu
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Forests is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • soil microorganisms/microbiomes
  • mycorrhizal fungi
  • microbial diversity
  • nitrogen cycling
  • nitrification
  • denitrification
  • decomposition
  • rhizosphere
  • soilborne diseases
  • forest management

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 2809 KiB  
Article
Soil Microbial Community Responds to Elevation Gradient in an Arid Montane Ecosystem in Northwest China
by Junlong Yang, Jian Yu, Jifei Wang and Xiaowei Li
Forests 2022, 13(9), 1360; https://doi.org/10.3390/f13091360 - 26 Aug 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1757
Abstract
This study sought to clarify the composition of soil fungal and bacterial communities along an elevation gradient in an arid montane ecosystem as well as the influence of environmental factors (soil properties, climate, topography, and plant diversity) upon soil microbial community structures. Four [...] Read more.
This study sought to clarify the composition of soil fungal and bacterial communities along an elevation gradient in an arid montane ecosystem as well as the influence of environmental factors (soil properties, climate, topography, and plant diversity) upon soil microbial community structures. Four vegetation types—montane desert steppe (mean elevation: 1761 m), montane shrub (mean elevation: 2077 m), subalpine coniferous forest (mean elevation: 2485 m), and subalpine shrub (mean elevation: 2903 m)—were sampled on the western slope of the Helan Mountains. The 16SrRNA gene and ITS1 were performed by single-molecule real-time (SMRT) sequencing with the PacBio sequencing platform. The Chao1 and Shannon–Wiener diversity of soil fungi and bacteria were more diverse in the soil of the lower elevation gradient compared to that of the upper one. Differences in abundance among phyla were found via One-way ANOVA(analysis of variance), yet the dominant soil fungal phyla (Ascomycota, Basidiomycota, and Mortierellomycota) and bacterial phyla (Proteobacteria, Acidobacteria, and Bacteroidetes) were the same across the elevation gradient. Pearson correlations and redundancy analysis (RDA) indicated that plant diversity (Shannon–Wiener diversity [H] and Margalef richness [D]), solar radiation, mean annual temperature, soil organic matter, soil moisture content, slope, mean annual precipitation, and elevation all significantly influenced the community composition of different soil fungal and bacterial phyla. Although plant diversity significantly affects fungal and bacterial diversity, the results imply that the influence of plant functional diversity on soil microbial community variation should not be ignored. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue World beneath Forests: Interactions between Soil Microbial Community and Trees)
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17 pages, 4189 KiB  
Article
Response of Functional Diversity of Soil Microbial Community to Forest Cutting and Regeneration Methodology in a Chinese Fir Plantation
by Xu Wang, Shenghua Gao, Jiquan Chen, Zengwang Yao, Lei Zhang, Hailong Wu, Qi Shu and Xudong Zhang
Forests 2022, 13(2), 360; https://doi.org/10.3390/f13020360 - 21 Feb 2022
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 2636
Abstract
With the expansion of pure forest planting area and the increase in the number of rotations used, soil activity and plant productivity have significantly reduced. The functional diversity of soil microorganisms plays a vital role in forest health and the long-term maintenance of [...] Read more.
With the expansion of pure forest planting area and the increase in the number of rotations used, soil activity and plant productivity have significantly reduced. The functional diversity of soil microorganisms plays a vital role in forest health and the long-term maintenance of productivity. Though the optimization of forest cutting and regeneration methodologies is necessary to improve the functional diversity of soil microorganisms, the effects of harvest residual treatment on the functional diversity of soil microorganisms remain unclear. During the period 2018–2020, we designed four harvest residual treatments—reference (RF), residual burning (RB), crushing and mulching (MT), and no residuals (NR)—to determine soil physical and chemical properties. We also used microbial biomass (MB) to evaluate the diversity in carbon source metabolism of soil microorganisms through Biolog microplate technology, and discussed the response mechanism of microbial functional diversity to the different forest cutting and regeneration methodologies used in Chinese fir plantations. The results indicated that RB significantly increased the carbon metabolic capacity of the microbial community, the community richness, and its dominance compared to RF, MT, and NR; however, they also showed that it decreased the uniformity of the soil microbial community. NR showed a poor carbon utilization capacity for microorganisms compared to RF and MT, while MT significantly increased the utilization capacity of carbohydrate and amino acid carbon compared with RF. Soil nutrients were the main driving factors of soil microbial carbon metabolic activity, and the different responses of microbial functional diversity to various forest cutting and regeneration methodologies were mainly due to the variation in the nutrient inputs of harvest residues. This study provides a practical basis for enhancing the functional diversity of soil microorganisms in plantations through the management of harvest residues. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue World beneath Forests: Interactions between Soil Microbial Community and Trees)
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