ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Symbiotic Interactions
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1491038
Microbial determinants of soil quality in mixed larch and birch forests: network structure and keystone taxa abundances
Provisionally accepted
- Hebei Agricultural University, Baoding, China
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Changes in forest soil microbial community characteristics affect soil function and quality. However, the mechanisms through which microbes drive soil quality across different stand types remain unclear. Three typical forest types, larch (Larix principis-rupprechtii) forest (LF), birch (Betula platyphylla) forest (BF), and mixed larch and birch forest (MF), were selected to assess soil properties, microbial community characteristics, and the complexity and stability of co-occurrence networks. The results showed that stand type significantly affected soil quality, microbial community composition, and network structure. Compared to LF stands, both MF and BF stands exhibited higher levels of soil organic carbon (SOC), total nitrogen (TN), available nitrogen (AN), available phosphorus (AP), maximum water holding capacity (MWHC), and soil quality index (SQI), with the SQI increasing by 54.29% and 48.57%, respectively. The bacterial Shannon index was lower in MF and BF stands, whereas the fungal Shannon index was higher. Fungal community composition was more sensitive to variations among the three stand types than bacterial communities. The MF stands exhibited higher microbial complexity and stability, with a higher relative abundance of keystone bacterial and fungal taxa associated with nutrient cycling and transformation. These findings suggest that SQI can be enhanced by increasing soil fungal diversity, improving microbial network complexity and stability, and increasing the relative abundance of key microbial taxa. This study emphasized that the mixing of larch and birch significantly affected soil microbial community characteristics, which in turn impacted soil nutrient utilization. The insights gained provide a deeper understanding of soil nutrient cycling in plantation ecosystems, offering valuable references for sustainable forest management practices.
Keywords: Larix principis-rupprechtii, Betula platyphylla, Microbial Diversity, network complexity, network stability, keystone taxa
Received: 04 Sep 2024; Accepted: 25 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhang, Liu, Li, Wang, Zhang, Ge 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: Zhidong Zhang, Hebei Agricultural University, Baoding, China
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