Changes in soil free-living diazotrophic community and co-occurrence patterns along desert wetland degradation gradient in the Mu Us Desert,northern China

Climate change and human activity have led to the degradation of desert wetlands.Free-living diazotrophs are vital for soil nitrogen input.However,a comprehensive understanding of how soil free-living diazotrophic communities and their co-occurrence patterns respond to desert wetland degradation is lacking.Here,quantitative polymerase chain reaction(qPCR),amplicon sequencing targeting nitrogenase gene(nifH),and network analysis were used to investigate the abundance,diversity,community composition,and co-occurrence patterns of soil free-living diazotrophs along the wetland degradation gradient,i.e.,non-degraded(ND),lightly degraded(LD),moderately degraded(MD),and severely degraded(SD),in the southeastern Mu Us Desert,northern China.The abundance and Shannon,Simpson,Chao 1,and ACE indexes decreased(P<0.05)by 14.6%,20.7%,2.1%,46.5%,and 45.0%,respectively,in SD wetland,whereas no significant difference(P>0.05)was observed between ND and LD wetlands.The relative abundance of Proteobacteria generally decreased(by 53.5%–19.7%)across the different degradation levels,while the relative abundance of Cyanobacteria increased(by 6.2%–40.1%)from ND to MD levels.The abundance,diversity,and community composition of diazotrophs were most strongly related to soil organic carbon,followed by total nitrogen,moisture,and pH.The least number of network nodes and edges and the lowest density were observed for MD and SD wetlands,indicating that the complexity of free-living diazotrophic networks was reduced by continued degeneration.Overall,severe desert wetland degradation affected the abundance,diversity,and network complexity of soil free-living diazotrophs more negatively than light degradation.This degradation promoted the growth of autotrophic diazotrophs and inhibited the growth of heterotrophic diazotrophs.These changes were mostly related to the loss of soil organic carbon.

N and P resorption as functions of the needle age class in two conifer trees

Aims Given the importance of resorption in nutrient conservations,nu-trient resorption should change with leaf age if resorption depends on nutrient content,and if nutrient content changes with leaf age.However,no study has addressed this issue.Methods Here,we measured N and P concentrations of needles of different ages in two woody evergreen conifer species-white spruce(Picea glauca Voss.)and balsam fir(Abies balsamea Mill.)-to determine the effects of needle aging on nutrient resorption.Important Findings For both species,N and P concentrations were higher in newer needles than in older needles.Nutrient resorption efficiency,i.e.percentage of nutrients resorbed during senescence,also declined significantly with needle age from 73 to 22%in these two evergreen conifer species.The difference in nutrient resorp-tion between old and young needles may be attributed to the size of N and P sink tissues,which is likely to decrease with needle age.These results suggest that needle age affects the extent of N and P resorption in these two evergreen conifer species.