ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Microbiological Chemistry and Geomicrobiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1615520
This article is part of the Research TopicForest Microbiome: Dynamics and Interactions in the Anthropocene Era, Vol IIView all 3 articles
Effects of fire intensity on soil microbial diversity and nitrogen cycling functional genes in forests (Northeast China)
Provisionally accepted
- Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Forest fire disturbance is one of the most critical disturbance factors in forest ecosystems in Northeast China. It not only destroys the balance of forest ecosystems, changes soil physical and chemical properties, but also has a series of effects on soil microbial community structure and nitrogen cycle. In this study, the burned area of Larix gmelinii forest in Daxing'an Mountain was taken as the research object, and the soil environmental factors, soil microbial structure, nitrogen cycle genes and their relationships under different fire intensity conditions were clarified. It is of great significance for vegetation restoration and soil nitrogen pool reconstruction after fire. The results showed that: (1) Light fire increased the contents of soil pH, total nitrogen (TN), soil organic carbon (SOC), nitrate nitrogen (NO3 --N) and available phosphorus (AP), and decreased the contents of soil moisture content (SMC), microbial biomass carbon (MBC), microbial biomass nitrogen (MBN) and ammonium nitrogen(NH4 + -N). Severe fire increased the contents of bulk density (BD), available potassium (AK), AP and NO3 --N, and decreased the contents of SMC, MBC, MBN, NH4 + -N and TN. (2) The bacterial community diversity (Shannon index) increased after light fire and decreased after severe fire. The bacterial richness (Sobs and Chao1 index) decreased after different fires. The Shannon, Sobs and Chao1 indexes of fungal community decreased after light and severe fire. The dominant flora of soil bacteria after burning was Proteobacteria, and Bradyrhizobium was the dominant genus. The dominant phylum of fungi was Basidiomycota, and Russula was the dominant genus. (3) The abundance of nitrogen fixation nifH gene decreased with the increase of fire intensity. The abundance of nitrification amoA-AOA and amoA-AOB genes increased significantly with the increase of fire intensity. The abundance of denitrification nirK, nirS and nosZ genes increased after light fire and decreased after severe fire. (4) Soil nitrogen (MBN, TN, NH4 + -N, NO3 --N) had a direct positive effect on soil nitrogen cycle genes. Fire intensity, available nutrients (AP, AK) and bacterial community had a direct negative effect on it.
Keywords: fire intensity, Microbial Diversity, Nitrogen Cycle, Gene abundance, Larix gmelinii forests
Received: 23 Apr 2025; Accepted: 02 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Jia, Shu, Zhao, Zhou and Yue. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yongjie Yue, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.