Abstract Close-to-nature forest management combines the economic use of forests with nature conservation in forest, aiming promote stability, productivity, diversity and continuity within forest ecosystems. While close-to-nature management is expected to positively impact the tree growth, its effect on the belowground micro-biota has been poorly investigated. Nematodes and microbes are species-rich and abundant soil microorganisms that have long been used as ecological indicators of soil health. In this study, was assessed the impact of close-to-nature forest management on soil nematode communities and microbial activity in the pine plantations on aeolian sands in Southern Slovakia, 10 years after the introduction of this management approach. Fifteen stands in close-to-nature forest managed and fifteen stands with applying standard forest management were chosen. Our findings revealed that close-to-nature forest management significantly increased the abundance of soil nematodes and nematode biomass in each of the plots. Moreover, close-to-nature forest management significantly increased the mean abundance of omnivores and predators as stress sensitive nematodes (c–p4, c–p5). Additionally, close-to-nature forest management reduces the proportion of stress tolerant nematodes (c–p1) and enrichment opportunists (c–p2), increased all maturity and structure indices as well as composite, structure, predator and omnivore footprints. Furthermore, close-to-nature forest management significantly increased soil moisture, soil carbon content, microbial biomass carbon, basal respiration and N-mineralization, and understory vegetation diversity. These findings suggest that close-to-nature management practice, resulting in forest of different ages, positively influenced nematode communities and microbial activity by changing the quantity and quality of resources associated with increased understory cover and diversity. 

Close-to-nature forest management effects on soil nematodes and microbial activity in pine plantations on aeolian sands

Soil bacterial α and β diversity patterns under nitrogen (N) addition have been intensively examined, but γ diversity patterns remain largely unknown, especially, the mechanisms that concurrently control changes in α, β and γ diversity remain elusive. Therefore, we formulated a conceptual framework that simultaneously considers candidate drivers including ubiquitous species, rare species, and community assembly processes to elucidate the driving mechanisms of α, β and γ diversity under N addition. The conceptual framework was tested by compiling the sequence data of seven studies published from January 1997 to May 2022 and following the same analysis as our own two long-term multilevel N addition experiments. We demonstrate that subtractive heterogenization based on environment selection simultaneously predicts the changes in α, β and γ diversity under long-term N addition. That is, long-term N addition led to the decline of ubiquitous species (subtractive processes) through low soil pH, and promoted the strength of heterogeneous selection (heterogeneous processes) via enhancing environmental heterogeneity, subsequently causing lower α diversity and γ diversity but higher β diversity. These results mean that N addition may lead to a significant loss of soil bacterial diversity around the world. Together, these findings offer a way to simultaneously predict soil bacterial α, β and γ diversity responses to the ongoing atmospheric nitrogen deposition. 

Driving mechanisms of soil bacterial α and β diversity under long-term nitrogen addition: Subtractive heterogenization based on the environment selection

Soil nematodes are the most abundant animals on Earth and play critical roles in regulating numerous ecosystem processes, from enhancing primary productivity to mineralizing multiple nutrients. In dryland soils, a rich community of microphyte organisms (biocrusts) provide critical habitats for soil nematodes, but their presence is being threatened by increasing aridity induced by global climate change. Despite its importance, how types of biocrusts and aridity index influence soil nematode community in dryland mountain ecosystems remains largely unknown. To fill these knowledge gaps, we conducted a field survey with contrasting aridity indexes (0.2, 0.4, and 0.6) and three types of biocrusts (cyanobacterial, cyanobacterial-moss mixed, and moss crusts) in the topsoil (0-5 cm) from the northern Chinese Loess Plateau. We found that the abundance (number of individuals per gram of soil), richness (number of Operational Taxonomic Units; OTUs), and diversity (number of different species) of soil nematodes were remarkably higher under biocrusts than in bare soils, regardless of aridity index and types of biocrusts. Our results also showed that the same variables had the highest values in moss crusts compared to cyanobacterial and cyanobacterial-moss mixed crusts. Structural equation modelling further revealed that biocrust types and traits (i.e., biocrust thickness, chlorophyll content, shear force, and penetration resistance) are the most important factors associated with both nematode abundance and richness. Together, our findings indicate that biocrusts, especially moss cover, and less stressful aridity conditions favor soil nematodes community in dryland mountain regions. Such knowledge is critical for anticipating the distribution of these animals under climate change scenarios and, ultimately, the numerous ecosystem services supported by soil nematodes. 

Cyanobacterial and moss biocrusts shape soil nematode community in dryland mountain ecosystems with increasing aridity.

ABSTRACT Faidherbia albida (Delile) A. Chev., hereafter F. albida is an important agroforestry tree species in the semi‐arid highlands of Tigray, northern Ethiopia. The paper analyses how different stand ages of the tree could influence nematodes' abundance, trophic composition and selected community index values. A total of 40 composite soil samples were collected from out‐canopies and under‐canopies of different tree stand age classes designated as young (15–20 years), medium age (35–40 years) and older (&gt; 60 years). Nematodes were extracted following the Baermann funnel technique, identified and counted under an inverted Olympus microscope according to their trophic groups. The highest total count of nematodes and relative abundance of fungivores, omnivores and predatory nematode trophic groups were counted from soil samples influenced by older F. albida trees. The relative abundance of bacterivores and plant parasitic nematodes was low. The nematode channel ratio became lower in soils as influenced by older trees while the Wasilewska index was significantly high. The age difference of the trees influenced the abundance of the soil nematode feeding groups and their ecological index values. Moreover, the results have shown the enhancement of nematode trophic diversity. Redundancy analysis showed that tree age significantly influenced the relationships of nematode trophic groups with the studied soil bio‐physicochemical properties. Generally, the findings indicate that the soil food web becomes more complex and functional under the older trees. 

Changes in Arenosol Nematode Abundance and Trophic Composition as Influenced by Different Faidherbia albida (Delile) A. Chev. Tree Stand Ages in Northern Ethiopia

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Soil Properties Determine the Variability of Soil Faunal Community Structure Among Subtropical Broad-Leaved Trees Species: Evidence from a Common Garden Experiment

Across ecology, and particularly within microbial ecology, there is limited understanding how the generation and maintenance of diversity. Although recent work has shown that both local assembly processes and species pools are important in structuring microbial communities, the relative contributions of these mechanisms remain an important question. Moreover, the roles of local assembly processes and species pools are drastically different when explicitly considering the potential for saturation or unsaturation, yet this issue is rarely addressed. Thus, we established a conceptual model that incorporated saturation theory into the microbiological domain to advance the understanding of mechanisms controlling soil bacterial diversity during forest secondary succession. Conceptual model hypotheses were tested by coupling soil bacterial diversity, local assembly processes and species pools using six different forest successional chronosequences distributed across multiple climate zones. Consistent with the unsaturated case proposed in our conceptual framework, we found that species pool consistently affected α-diversity, even while local assembly processes on local richness operate. In contrast, the effects of species pool on β-diversity disappeared once local assembly processes were taken into account, and changes in environmental conditions during secondary succession led to shifts in β-diversity through mediation of the strength of heterogeneous selection. Overall, this study represents one of the first to demonstrate that most local bacterial communities might be unsaturated, where the effect of species pool on α-diversity is robust to the consideration of multiple environmental influences, but β-diversity is constrained by environmental selection.

Species pool, local assembly processes: Disentangling the mechanisms determining bacterial α- and β-diversity during forest secondary succession.

Understanding the linkages between aboveground and belowground ecosystems is important for explaining the variation in soil organisms with plant communities on a spatiotemporal scale. Here, soil nematode communities were investigated across three successional stages (early, mid, and late) in two contrasting forests at low and high latitudes in China. We found that forest succession affected the relative abundance of some nematode trophic groups, whereas it did not alter the total nematode abundance in the two forests. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling analysis showed that nematode community composition changed significantly from the early and mid‐stages to the late stage. The mantel analysis showed that total soil P at low latitude and litter C:N ratio at high latitude were more closely related to the variation in nematode community during forest succession, respectively. Total nematode diversity increased marginally with forest succession at low latitude, but first increased and then decreased with forest succession at high latitude. Interestingly, total nematode diversity was related to plant‐feeding nematode diversity during forest succession in both the forests. In addition, structural equation models showed that the diversity of different nematode trophic groups was directly affected by forest succession and indirectly affected by the quantity of soil resources and the quality of soil and litter. More importantly, forest succession drives total nematode diversity by directly affecting plant‐feeding nematode diversity. Collectively, forest succession alters the diversity and increases the dissimilarity of soil nematode communities. However, changes in soil and litter properties during forest succession at different latitudes differentially influence nematode communities.

Changes in soil and litter properties differentially influence soil nematode communities across three successional stages in two contrasting forests

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Species pool, local assembly processes: Disentangling the mechanisms determining bacterial α- and β-diversity during forest secondary succession.

Changes in soil and litter properties differentially influence soil nematode communities across three successional stages in two contrasting forests