ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Terrestrial Microbiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1662400
This article is part of the Research TopicMicrobe-Environment Interaction Across Grassland Ecosystems: Soil Microbial Diversity, Plant-Microbe Interplay, and Ecosystem FunctionalityView all 8 articles
Effects of Veratrum nigrum expansion on soil microbial community structure in Inner Mongolian mountain steppe
Provisionally accepted
- Agro-Environmental Protection Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Tianjin, China
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Abstract: Backgrounds: The expansion of poisonous weeds can significantly affect soil microbial communities and their ecosystem functions. In this regard, the poisonous weed Veratrum nigrum has impacted vast regions of Inner Mongolia, with potential impacts on the microbial community structure. However, the mechanism associated with this change remain unclear. Methods: In this study, we conducted a comparative analysis of four hazard levels (control CK, coverage = 0; light hazard L, coverage ≤20%; moderate hazard M, 20% 40%) of V. nigrum in Inner Mongolia region, focusing on its effects on the soil physicochemical properties, microbial community structure, diversity, and co-occurrence patterns. Results: Results revealed that expansion of V. nigrum significantly altered the physicochemical properties and structure of the soil microbiota. The contents of available nitrogen, total nitrogen, total phosphorus, available phosphorus, and available potassium in the S treatment were significantly higher than those in the CK (P <0.05), indicating that the diffusion of V. nigrum enhanced nutrient availability. Compared with CK, the fungal Chao1 and Shannon diversity increased significantly in the S treatment, whereas the abundance of oligotrophs (Basidiomycota) decreased significantly. In contrast, the Chao1 and Shannon indices of bacteria under S treatment showed no significant difference compared to CK. Correlation analyses indicated that soil fungal community composition was more sensitive to the changes in soil physicochemical properties caused by V. nigrum than bacterial community composition. Additionally, microbial co-occurrence network analyses revealed that the expansion of V. nigrum led to an increase in competitive microbial interactions. Structural equation modeling confirmed the influence of V. nigrum expansion and nutrient changes on the fungal community composition and diversity. Conclusion: This study reveals that V. nigrum expansion enhances nutrient availability and promotes the recovery of soil microbial diversity in degraded grasslands, particularly soil fungi, indicating that V. nigrum expansion serves as a self-protective mechanism for degraded grasslands. Thus, we aimed to challenge the conventional perspective that poisonous weeds are invariably harmful and to offer new insights into their role within degraded grassland ecosystems.
Keywords: Bacteria, expansion, Fungi, Microbial co-occurrence network, Veratrumnigrum
Received: 09 Jul 2025; Accepted: 30 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Pang, Zhang, Liu, Yang, Wang, Zhang, Liu and Zhang. 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:
Hongmei Liu, liuhongmei@caas.cn
Haifang Zhang, zhanghaifang01@caas.cn
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