Abstract
Background and aims
Plant interactions with soil microbes are important drivers of biodiversity and dynamics of alpine plant communities. However, little is known about the effects of these interactions on seed germination and plant establishment of alpine plants under global climate change. We investigated the individual and interactive effects of warming, soil microbes and shrubs on seed germination, survival, and growth of herbaceous species.
Methods
We simulated warming and manipulated live and sterile soil microbes and microhabitat in the alpine meadow ecosystem dominated by the shrub (Dasiphora fruticosa) on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. We tested the interactive effects of warming, soil microbes, and shrubs on the germination, early life survival, and growth of herbaceous species. Soil microbial communities were determined by high-throughput sequencing.
Results
Our results showed that seed germination was significantly reduced under warming; seed germination was higher in live soils than in sterile soils; early life survival was lower under shrub canopies. Additionally, in the warming treatment, the positive effect of soil microbes on seed germination shifted to negative on the early survival of herbaceous species. Furthermore, in the warming treatment, shrubs enhanced the positive effects of soil microbes on seed germination and reduced the negative effects of soil microbes on early survival. The effects of these individual and interactive factors on herbaceous species also depended on species identity and life stages.
Conclusion
Overall, our work demonstrates that soil microbes were particularly critical at seed germination stage and plant interactions with soil microbes were significantly altered with experimental warming.
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Data availability
The datasets are available from corresponding authors upon reasonable request and the Gene sequencing data can be found in the: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bioproject/PRJNA911959.
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This work was funded from the Project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41830321, 31870412, 31670435, 31670437), the “111 Project” (BP0719040), and supported from the Gansu Gannan Grassland Ecosystem National Observation and Research Station.
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Kun Liu and Ziyang Liu. designed the experiments; Shuyan Chen, Xiangtai Wang, Lizhe An, Jinwei Chen, Hanwen Cui, Hongxian Song, Xiaoli Yang, Lihua Meng, Haining Gao, Jiajia Wang and Yajun Wang collected field and laboratorial data. Jiajia Wang and Sa Xiao performed statistical analysis and made the figures. Jiajia Wang, Stephen Patrick Bonser and Sa Xiao drafted the manuscript. All authors contributed to the manuscript.
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Wang, J., Bonser, S.P., Liu, K. et al. Warming affects herbaceous germination, early survival, and growth by shifting plant-soil microbe interactions in an alpine ecosystem. Plant Soil 487, 249–265 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-023-05921-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-023-05921-y