Elsevier

CATENA

Volume 201, June 2021, 105211
CATENA

Differences in microbial communities from Quaternary volcanic soils at different stages of development: Evidence from Late Pleistocene and Holocene volcanoes

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2021.105211Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Older volcanic soils had greater microbial richness, diversity and evenness than younger volcanic soils.

  • Younger volcanic soils had a more complex microbial network than older volcanic soils.

  • Soil fungal communities showed greater stability than soil bacterial communities.

  • Quaternary volcanic soils first directly mediated soil carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus.

Abstract

Volcanic eruptions are a universal cause of ecological and geological disturbance; however, the differences in microbial communities from Quaternary volcanic soils at different stages of development in Inner Mongolia are little known. Microbial communities were investigated in Quaternary volcanic soils from Late Pleistocene volcano and Holocene volcano with the objective of elucidating their differences. The composition and potential functionality of soil microbial communities was significantly diverse between Late Pleistocene volcanic soils and Holocene volcanic soils. Although the richness, diversity and evenness of microbial communities at older volcanic soils were significantly greater than at younger volcanic soils, younger volcanic soils possessed a more complex microbial community network than older volcanic soils. The soil bacterial community was more sensitive to Quaternary volcanic soils than the fungal community, exhibiting significant differences at the phylum level and possessing more biomarkers. Quaternary volcanic soils may have enriched some specific microorganisms, i.e., biomarkers and generalists, closely related to the metabolism of soil carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus. Quaternary volcanic soils first directly mediated soil carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus, and then guided microbial multifunctionality. These results clarify the difference patterns of soil microbial communities in support of better ecological management of volcanic area in Inner Mongolia.

Introduction

The most explosive volcanic event of the Quaternary was the eruption of the Wulanhada volcanic field in Inner Mongolia, North China (Bai et al., 2008, Zhang et al., 2018, Li et al., 2020, Chen et al., 2021). After a violent Strombolian eruption, the Wulanhada volcanic field gradually formed more than 30 well-preserved Late Pleistocene epoch and Holocene epoch volcanic cones (Fan et al., 2014). Volcanic eruptions are a universal cause of ecological and geological disturbance, providing recurrent opportunities for the investigation of biological responses to the formation of novel habitats (Elser et al., 2015). The effects of volcanic eruptions have been widely investigated, for example the interrelationships between microbial communities and soil properties in young volcanic ash soils in Latin America (Joergensen and Castillo, 2001), the formation and mobility of soil organic carbon (SOC) from a volcanic ash soil in Japan (Wijesinghe et al., 2020), and the biogeochemical factors related to organic matter degradation and C storage in agricultural volcanic ash soils in Europe (Hernandez and Almendros, 2012). However, no information exists on the soil microbial communities under Quaternary volcanic activity during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene in Inner Mongolia, China. Our first objective was to investigate these two epoch volcanic soils in the Wulanhada volcanic group to compare their differences in the structural diversity and function of soil microbial communities.

With an enhanced understanding of the role of microbes, growing evidence suggests that microorganisms have critical functions in processes as diverse as biogeochemical cycles and for life-critical human health issues across all global environments (Cai and Sun, 2011). As soil is an essential resource and an integral part of all terrestrial environments it is important to devise a model for the exploration of fertility, climate regulation, food production, ecosystem stability and microbial communities (Jiao et al., 2019). In recent years, microorganisms in volcanic soils have become an important research topic capable of accurately assessing the influence of volcanic disturbance on soil ecosystems (Rincon-Molina et al., 2020, Xing et al., 2020). Few prospective studies have compared the structure and function of bacterial and fungal communities in volcanic soils. In particular there is no research related to differences in the stability of these microbial communities in Quaternary volcanic soils at different stages of development. Soil bacterial and fungal communities can show distinct differences in community stability (resistance and resilience) to some environmental conditions (Liu et al., 2020, Jiao et al., 2018, Veach et al., 2019). We were prompted by these facts to verify whether such differences also exist in the environments of Quaternary volcanic soils. For this reason, our second objective was to systematically evaluate stability differences between soil fungal and bacterial communities in these locations.

Volcanic eruptions result in loss of original soil and destruction of local surface vegetation (Kim et al., 2018, Morales-Simfors et al., 2020). Volcanic soils form from volcanic lava and have been supplemented with volcanic ejecta from subsequent eruptions (Shillam et al., 2008) and the entire soil formation process is closely related to soil carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus. After volcanic eruptions and as part of the soil formation process, soil microbiomes aid in restoring soil structure and in the creation of new soil horizons. At the beginning of the soil formation process the volcanic soil environment is colonized by primary organisms (including primarily pioneer microorganisms and plants) that subsequently support the colonization of other organisms (Rincon-Molina et al., 2020). Previous studies have shown that extreme environments can always preserve some special microbiomes, potentially playing a critical role for food production, climate regulation, soil fertility and ecosystem stability (Ramijan et al., 2018, Vavourakis et al., 2018). However, these special microbiomes have not been widely and/or deeply studied in our chosen location. In addition, soil stabilization is provided by interactions between microbial communities and vegetation as well as affecting the levels of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus (Peralta et al., 2010, Schutz et al., 2017). Our third objective was to examine how Quaternary volcanic soils can regulate soil microbiomes and vegetation by affecting soil carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus, and ultimately microbial multifunctionality.

In this study, we describe novel research related to the structure and function of microbial communities from Late Pleistocene and Holocene volcanic soils in Inner Mongolia. Our results will be beneficial for evaluating these microbial communities’ differences in Quaternary volcanic soils at different stages of development.

Section snippets

Description of study area and site selection

Our study area extends for 65.9 km2 in the Wulanhada volcanic group (113°02′-113°15′E, 41°30′-41°40′N) in the central part of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China (Fan et al., 2014). The study area is subject to a mid-temperate semiarid continental monsoon climate with an uneven distribution of precipitation, mainly concentrated in the summer. The annual average temperature and precipitation are 3.4 ℃ and 292 mm, respectively. The Wulanhada volcanic group is located in a region of

Soil ages and microbial community diversity

The OSL ages of soils taken from Huoshaoshan Volcano were 21.05 ± 1.75 ka BP, the OSL ages of soils taken from Zhongliandanlu Volcano were 2.23 ± 1.18 ka BP, they are Late Pleistocene epoch and Holocene epoch, respectively (Table S1). Illumina paired-end sequencing yielded a total of 5,258,886 bacterial 16S rRNA gene sequences (average length 253.14 bp) and 5,304,621 fungal ITS gene sequences (average length 238.17 bp) after trimming and quality control. In this study, 22,785 (bacterial) and

Discussion

In this study, the differences in microbial communities from Quaternary volcanic soils at different stages of development were assessed by directly surveying soil microbial community structure and function, vegetative diversity and soil nitrogen, carbon and phosphorus in Late Pleistocene and Holocene volcanic soils. Volcanic eruptions are important environmental forces, providing a model for exploring soil-forming processes, including microbial colonization and initial community succession (

Conclusion

Our study concluded that the composition and potential functionality of soil microbial communities was significantly diverse between Quaternary volcanic soils at different stages of development. The older volcanic soils (Late Pleistocene volcanic soils) showed greater richness, diversity and evenness of microbial communities than the younger volcanic soils (Holocene volcanic soils); however, the younger volcanic soils had a more complex microbial community network than the older volcanic soils.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the State Key Research Development Program of China (2016YFC0501106 and 2016YFC0501108), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31760005) and the Science and Technology Major Project of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China (zdzx2018065).

References (67)

  • L. Shillam et al.

    Structural diversity and enzyme activity of volcanic soils at different stages of development and response to experimental disturbance

    Soil Biol. Biochem.

    (2008)
  • D. Tscherko et al.

    Shifts in rhizosphere microbial communities and enzyme activity of Poa alpina across an alpine chronosequence

    Soil Biol. Biochem.

    (2004)
  • M. Wang et al.

    Responses of soil microbial communities and their network interactions to saline-alkaline stress in Cd-contaminated soils

    Environ. Pollut.

    (2019)
  • C. Xiao et al.

    Effects of cultivation ages and modes on microbial diversity in the rhizosphere soil of Panax ginseng

    J. Ginseng Res.

    (2016)
  • Q.Q. Zhang et al.

    Devonian alkaline magmatic belt along the northern margin of the North China Block: Petrogenesis and tectonic implications

    Lithos

    (2018)
  • R.I. Adams et al.

    Dispersal in microbes: fungi in indoor air are dominated by outdoor air and show dispersal limitation at short distances

    ISME J.

    (2013)
  • M.J. Anderson et al.

    Canonical analysis of principal coordinates: a useful method of constrained ordination for ecology

    Ecology

    (2003)
  • Z.D. Bai et al.

    Quaternary volcano cluster of Wulanhada, right-back-banner, Chahaer, Inner Mongolia

    Acta Petrol. Sin.

    (2008)
  • A. Barberan et al.

    Using network analysis to explore co-occurrence patterns in soil microbial communities

    ISME J.

    (2012)
  • Y. Cai et al.

    ESPRIT-Tree: hierarchical clustering analysis of millions of 16S rRNA pyrosequences in quasilinear computational time

    Nucleic Acids Res.

    (2011)
  • J.G. Caporaso et al.

    QIIME allows analysis of high-throughput community sequencing data

    Nat. Methods

    (2010)
  • Chen, J., Mo, L., Zhang, Z.C., Nan, J., Xu, D.L., Chao, L.M., Bao, Y.Y., 2020a. Evaluation of the ecological...
  • Chen, J., Nan, J., Xu, D., Mo, L., Zheng, Y., Chao, L., Qu, H.T., Guo, Y.Q., Li, F.S., Bao, Y., 2020b. Response...
  • J. Chen et al.

    Microbial assemblages associated with the rhizosphere and endosphere of an herbage, Leymus chinensis

    Microb. Biotechnol.

    (2020)
  • J. Chen et al.

    Distinct effects of volcanic cone types on soil microbiomes: evidence from cinder cone and spatter cone

    Catena

    (2021)
  • Y.P. Chen et al.

    Responses of soil microbial activity to cadmium pollution and elevated CO2

    Sci Rep

    (2014)
  • J. Dai et al.

    Comparing alkaline phosphatase PhoX-encoding genes in two contrasting habitats of the large eutrophic Lake Taihu, China

    Geomicrobiol. J.

    (2018)
  • Douglas, G.M., Maffei, V.J., Zaneveld, J., Yurgel, S.N., Brown, J.R., Taylor, C.M., Langille, M.G.I., 2020. PICRUSt2:...
  • R.C. Edgar et al.

    UCHIME improves sensitivity and speed of chimera detection

    Bioinformatics

    (2011)
  • J.J. Elser et al.

    Community structure and biogeochemical impacts of microbial life on floating pumice

    Appl. Environ. Microbiol.

    (2015)
  • C. Fleming et al.

    Microbiota-activated CD103 (+) DCs stemming from microbiota adaptation specifically drive γδT17 proliferation and activation

    Microbiome

    (2017)
  • E. Goleva et al.

    The effects of airway microbiome on corticosteroid responsiveness in asthma

    Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med.

    (2013)
  • Y. Guo et al.

    Characterization of early microbial communities on volcanic deposits along a vegetation gradient on the Island of Miyake, Japan

    Microbes Environ.

    (2014)
  • Cited by (10)

    • Landscape management alters relationships between edaphic conditions, bacterial diversities, and nitrogen-cycling traits

      2022, Applied Soil Ecology
      Citation Excerpt :

      Since the landscaped and undeveloped green spaces were in different slopes and with different plant communities, other unmeasured factors might also affect soil bacterial diversity to some degree. A growing number of studies demonstrated that reduced microbial diversity leads to more variable communities (Chen et al., 2021; Kefi et al., 2019). In this study, undeveloped systems showed considerable spatial variations in bacterial diversity and contained more site-specific indicative species, with about 60 % of Saccharibacteria and Cyanobacteria taxa being identified as indicators.

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text