Halophytes increase rhizosphere microbial diversity, network complexity and function in inland saline ecosystem.

Salinization is an important global environmental problem influencing sustainable development of terrestrial ecosystems. Salt-tolerant halophytes are often used as a promising approach to remedy the saline soils. Yet, how rhizosphere microbes' association and functions vary with halophytes in saline ecosystems remains unclear, restricting our ability to assess the role of halophytes in remedying saline ecosystems. Herein, we examined bacterial and fungal diversities, compositions, and co-occurrence networks in the rhizospheres of six halophytes and bulk soils in a semiarid inland saline ecosystem, and related these parameters to microbial functions. The microbiomes were more diverse and complex and microbial activity and residues were higher in rhizospheres than bulk soils. The connections of taxa in the rhizosphere microbial communities increased with fungi-fungi and bacteria-fungi connections and fungal diversity. The proportion of the fungi-related central connections were larger in rhizospheres (13-73%) than bulk soils (3%). Moreover, microbial activity and residues were significantly correlated with microbial composition and co-occurrence network complexity. These results indicated that enhanced association between fungi and bacteria increased microbial co-occurring network complexity in halophytes rhizosphere, which contributed to the higher microbial functions (microbial activities and residue) in this inland saline ecosystem.

[Relationships between soil organic carbon and environmental factors in gully watershed of the Loess Plateau].

Understanding the distribution of organic carbon fractions in soils and their relationships with environmental factors are very important for appraising soil organic carbon status and assessing carbon cycling in the Loess Plateau. In this research, through field investigation and laboratory analysis, we studied the relationships between soil organic carbon and environmental factors in a gully watershed of the Loess Plateau. The environmental factors are landforms, land use conditions and soil types. The results showed that total soil organic carbon presented less variance, while high labile organic carbon presented greater variance. The variation coefficients of them are 34% and 43%, respectively, indicating that the variability of organic carbon in soils increased with the increasing of their activities. Total soil organic carbon, labile organic carbon, middle and high labile organic carbon were highly interrelated and presented similar distribution trend with environmental factors. Among different landforms, land uses, and soil types, the highest contents of organic carbon in different fractions were observed in plateau land, forest and farm lands, and black loessial soils, while the lowest contents of them were observed in gully bottom, grass land, and rubified soils, respectively. The relationships between organic carbon and environmental factors indicate that environmental factors not only directly influence the distribution of soil organic carbon, but also indirectly influence them through affecting the relationships among organic carbon fractions. The relationship between total organic carbon and labile organic carbon responses rapidly to environmental factors, while that between middle labile organic carbon and high labile organic carbon responses slowly to environmental factors.