Effects of extreme drought on community and ecological network of soil fungi in a temperate desert

doi:10.17520/biods.2021327

Abstract

Abstract:

Aims Extreme drought exacerbates the expansion of desert areas around the world. Microbial diversity is associated with multiple ecosystem functions in the desert. Evaluating the response of fungal communities to extreme drought is essential for our understanding of regional desertification caused by drought in a temperate desert.

Methods Based on three-year (D3) and ten-year (D10) drought plots established in the Gurbantunggut Desert, we investigated the effect of extreme drought on the diversity and ecological network of fungal communities.

Results Our results demonstrated that in both the D3 and D10 plots, the droughts had no significant influence on the Chao1 and Shannon diversity indexes of the whole and abundant fungi, while the rare fungal Shannon diversity index significantly increased. Both extreme drought treatments had a noticeable effect on community composition of whole, abundant and rare fungi, with stronger effect on rare fungi (ANOSIM, R = 0.378-0.595, P < 0.01) than that on the abundant fungi (ANOSIM, R = 0.282-0.555, P < 0.01), suggesting that abundant fungi were more resistant to drought than rare taxa. Moreover, beta-diversity of the whole, abundant, and rare fungi decreased significantly in D3 and D10 treatments, suggesting that extreme drought served as an ecological filter on fungal community assembly. Molecular ecological network analysis revealed that in both the D3 and D10 plots there was a reduced fungal network complexity, suggesting that extreme drought reduced the interactions among fungal communities. In addition, abundant fungi had higher node topological parameters (P < 0.05), indicating that abundant fungi were important for maintaining fungal species interactions under extreme drought conditions.

Conclusion Extreme drought significantly altered fungal community composition and weakened the interactions among fungal communities in a temperate desert. Furthermore, rare fungi were sensitive to extreme drought, contributing to reducing the lag in the response to fungal communities, and abundant fungi, as the core microflora in fungal networks, were crucial to sustaining the stability of fungal communities and interactions among species under extreme drought conditions.

Key words: Gurbantunggut Desert, extreme drought, abundant fungal taxa, rare fungal taxa, molecular ecological network

Peng Xu, Xiaoying Rong, Chaohong Liu, Fang Du, Benfeng Yin, Ye Tao, Yuanming Zhang. Effects of extreme drought on community and ecological network of soil fungi in a temperate desert[J]. Biodiv Sci, 2022, 30(3): 21327.

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URL: https://www.biodiversity-science.net/EN/10.17520/biods.2021327

https://www.biodiversity-science.net/EN/Y2022/V30/I3/21327

Figures/Tables 5

References 62

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环境因子 Environmental factors	总真菌 Whole fungi		丰富真菌 Abundant fungi		稀有真菌 Rare fungi
环境因子 Environmental factors	R	P	R	P	R	P
土壤含水率 Soil moisture content	0.102	0.106	0.117	0.080	0.071	0.163
酸碱度 pH	0.118	0.143	0.098	0.186	0.210	0.026
总碳 Total carbon (TC)	0.162	0.059	0.134	0.089	0.194	0.024
总有机碳 Total organic carbon (TOC)	0.161	0.060	0.168	0.057	0.109	0.117
总氮 Total nitrogen (TN)	0.198	0.017	0.160	0.036	0.215	0.009
铵态氮 NH₄⁺-N	0.461	0.001	0.443	0.001	0.509	0.001
硝态氮 NO₃^--N	0.332	0.001	0.314	0.001	0.342	0.001
总磷 Total phosphorus (TP)	-0.049	0.751	-0.037	0.688	-0.063	0.828
速效磷 Available phosphorus (AP)	-0.017	0.551	-0.034	0.647	0.060	0.200

环境因子 Environmental factors	总真菌 Whole fungi		丰富真菌 Abundant fungi		稀有真菌 Rare fungi
环境因子 Environmental factors	R	P	R	P	R	P
土壤含水率 Soil moisture content	0.102	0.106	0.117	0.080	0.071	0.163
酸碱度 pH	0.118	0.143	0.098	0.186	0.210	0.026
总碳 Total carbon (TC)	0.162	0.059	0.134	0.089	0.194	0.024
总有机碳 Total organic carbon (TOC)	0.161	0.060	0.168	0.057	0.109	0.117
总氮 Total nitrogen (TN)	0.198	0.017	0.160	0.036	0.215	0.009
铵态氮 NH₄⁺-N	0.461	0.001	0.443	0.001	0.509	0.001
硝态氮 NO₃^--N	0.332	0.001	0.314	0.001	0.342	0.001
总磷 Total phosphorus (TP)	-0.049	0.751	-0.037	0.688	-0.063	0.828
速效磷 Available phosphorus (AP)	-0.017	0.551	-0.034	0.647	0.060	0.200

	自然对照 Ambient control (CK)	干旱三年 Drought for 3 years (D3)	干旱十年 Drought for 10 years (D10)
总节点 Total nodes	564	448	489
总边 Total edges	714	480	495
幂律系数 R² of power-law	0.958	0.976	0.921
负相关边比例 Negative edges percentage (%)	54.6	66.7	51.3
相似性阈值 Similarity threshold	0.830	0.830	0.830
平均度 Average degree	2.53	2.14	2.02
平均聚集系数 Average clustering coefficient	0.093	0.083	0.080
平均路径长度 Average path length	8.00	8.95	12.50
模块化指数 Modularity	0.841	0.875	0.939
随机网络平均聚集系数 Random average clustering coefficient	0.005 ± 0.003	0.004 ± 0.003	0.003 ± 0.002
随机网络平均路径长度 Random average path length	5.866 ± 0.113	7.163 ± 0.227	8.694 ± 0.363
随机网络模块化指数 Random modularity	0.716 ± 0.006	0.799 ± 0.007	8.699 ± 0.006

	自然对照 Ambient control (CK)	干旱三年 Drought for 3 years (D3)	干旱十年 Drought for 10 years (D10)
总节点 Total nodes	564	448	489
总边 Total edges	714	480	495
幂律系数 R² of power-law	0.958	0.976	0.921
负相关边比例 Negative edges percentage (%)	54.6	66.7	51.3
相似性阈值 Similarity threshold	0.830	0.830	0.830
平均度 Average degree	2.53	2.14	2.02
平均聚集系数 Average clustering coefficient	0.093	0.083	0.080
平均路径长度 Average path length	8.00	8.95	12.50
模块化指数 Modularity	0.841	0.875	0.939
随机网络平均聚集系数 Random average clustering coefficient	0.005 ± 0.003	0.004 ± 0.003	0.003 ± 0.002
随机网络平均路径长度 Random average path length	5.866 ± 0.113	7.163 ± 0.227	8.694 ± 0.363
随机网络模块化指数 Random modularity	0.716 ± 0.006	0.799 ± 0.007	8.699 ± 0.006