Recently, the Innovation Team of Grassland Ecology and Remote Sensing at the Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning (IARRP), Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) has made significant progress in revealing the ecological processes of soil biodiversity and community in responses to wildfire. The related findings have been published in the journals Applied Soil Ecology and European Journal of Soil Biology.

Soil microbes are vital components of terrestrial ecosystems, performing rich diversity and crucial ecological functions. With the acceleration of global warming, the frequency and intensity of wildfire are increasing, leading to changes in soil microbial community structure and function in terrestrial ecosystems. However, the underlying mechanisms and ecological processes by which soil microbial communities respond to wildfire remain unclear.

The research team found that soil bacterial and fungal diversity declined after wildfire. Despite lower soil microbial diversity, the ecological processes of community reorganization were mainly attributed to taxonomic turnover rather than the loss of specific taxa or loss of diversity. The study further quantified homogeneous as well as heterogeneous turnover based on functional group classification. Both of turnover contributed equally to reorganization of soil microbial community structure in responses to wildfire. Furthermore, turnover mainly occurred among carbon-cycling bacteria and saprotrophic fungi. The results of generalized dissimilarity model indicated that increased soil temperature and reduced inorganic nitrogen explained 68% of bacterial taxonomic turnover, while higher soil temperature and carbon-nitrogen ratio accounted for 60% of fungal community taxonomic turnover. This research emphasizes the contribution of taxonomic turnover in reshaping soil microbial communities, advancing our understanding of the mechanisms of soil biodiversity response and community organization under environmental disturbances.

Doctoral student Ziyue Shi from IARRP,is the first author of the paper, with Professor Weixing Liu  as the corresponding author. This research was supported by the State Key Laboratory of Efficient Utilization of Arid and Semi-arid Arable Land in Northern China, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42141006, 32171595), and the Young Talents Program of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

Original Paper Links:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apsoil.2024.10557

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejsobi.2024.103677