The short-term impacts of soil disturbance on soil microbial community in a degraded Leymus chinensis steppe, North China

The synergy between vegetation and soil is a fundamental driver of ecosystem restoration, yet the short-term impacts of soil disturbance on soil microbes and the relations between vegetation and soil during vegetation recovery remain unclear. We compared the responses of plants, soil physicochemical properties, and microbial communities after seven years of application of soil disturbance techniques (harrowing, HA; shallow ploughing, SP; and natural recovery, NR, the control) in a degraded Leymus chinensis steppe. Our results showed that bacterial community was more stable and did not change significantly under soil disturbance, but the fungal community was more sensitive to soil disturbance and was closely related to soil water content, bulk density, and relative aboveground biomass of dominant plant species. The results of this study suggest that soil disturbance techniques directly (mainly via changes in soil physical properties) and indirectly (mainly via changes in plant community composition) affected soil fungal community composition. Data show that SP largely facilitated the recovery of L. chinensis but decreased plant richness and diversity, resulted in a slower rate of soil microbial and soil quality restoration relative to the other treatments. It is also clear that HA and NR exerted positive effects on the recovery of the plant and soil microbial communities across degraded Leymus chinensis steppe over short timescales. Our results provide scientific guidance for more effective management of degraded grassland, and suggest that above- and belowground communities should be considered to be precise indicators of grassland ecosystem restoration. The long-term effects of soil disturbance techniques on soil microbial communities require further study.