ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Functional Plant Ecology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1678667
Impact of different forest types on soil microbial biomass and microbial entropy in the karst region of southwestern China
Provisionally accepted
- Guizhou Education University, Guiyang, 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
Soil microbial biomass and microbial entropy are used as important indicators of soil quality. However, the effects of forest-stand types remain poorly understood. This study focused on three stands of Cryptomeria japonica var. sinensis (CJ), Liquidambar formosana (LF), and their mixed forests (CL) in Guizhou Province, China. Soil samples were collected from three depths to investigate variations in soil microbial biomass C, N, P (MBC, MBN, MBP), as well as microbial entropy C, N, P (qMBC, qMBN, qMBP ) among different forest stands. Additionally, the influence of soil organic C (SOC), total N (TN), total P (TP), and their stoichiometry, along with soil microbial C:N:P stoichiometry and soil-microbial stoichiometric imbalances on soil microbial biomass and microbial entropy are analyzed. The variance analysis revealed, compared to pure stands, the mixed forest exhibited significantly higher MBC (38.84%), MBC stocks (46.72%), MBC/MBN (52.23%), MBC/MBP (52.23%), and qMBC (23.49%; p < 0.05). Pure stand LF showed approximately 30% higher soil microbial stoichiometric imbalances (C/Nimb, C/Pimb, and N/Pimb) than the other two stand types (p < 0.05). While the pure CJ stand exhibited significantly higher qMBN and qMBP (19.62% and 17.26%, respectively; p < 0.05). MBC, MBN, MBP, and their storage decreased significantly with increasing soil depth (p < 0.05), no significant effect on microbial stoichiometric ratios or microbial entropy. Correlation and redundancy analyses demonstrated that MBC, MBN, and MBP were highly significantly positively correlated with SOC, TN, and TP contents (p < 0.01), whereas qMBC and qMBN exhibited highly significant negative correlations with SOC, TP, SOC/TP, TN/TP, C/Pimb, and N/Pimb (p < 0.01). Soil TP and MBC/MBP were identified as the primary factors influencing soil microbial biomass variation, with explanatory rates of 42.8% and 14.8%, respectively. Furthermore, C/Nimb and C/Pimb emerged as key determinants affecting microbial entropy dynamics, accounting for 31.5% and 14.2% of the observed variation, respectively. This study provided valuable data and insights for developing mixed forest management strategies in karst areas.
Keywords: karst, forest type, soil microbial biomass, Soil microbial entropy, Ecologicalstoichiometry characteristics
Received: 03 Aug 2025; Accepted: 13 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wu, zhong, liu, Ding 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: xun liu, liuhongxun@163.com
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.