In recent decades, human activities from fossil fuel burning and agricultural fertilization have significantly increased the input of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and other nutrients into terrestrial ecosystems.  

The addition of N and P has been proven to alleviate nutrients limitation and increase vegetation productivity. However, recent research suggests that it also intensifies light competition, reduces plant diversity, alter plant community composition, and poses a threat to underground biodiversity and ecosystem function. 

The response of soil fungal community diversity and network characteristics to N and P addition in semi-arid grasslands remain largely unknown. 

A research team led by LI Yulin from the Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) conducted a nine-year experiment in northern China’s semi-arid grasslands to investigate how adding N and P nutrients affects soil fungal communities’ diversity, composition, functional groups, and co-occurrence networks. 

The study was published in Science of the Total Environment on Mar. 29. 

Researchers investigated the impact of N and P enrichment on soil fungal community to understand how nutrient addition affects soil fungal functional guilds and co-occurrence networks. 

The results indicate that the addition of N and P reduces plant diversity and changes their composition, particularly by increasing the presence and biomass of perennial grasses. Moreover, N enrichment significantly decreases fungal diversity and alter their community composition, while P addition has no significant impact.  

The network analysis shows that N addition disrupts fungal network complexity and stability, while P addition slightly enhances its complexity. Furthermore, the interaction between N and P reveals that adding P mitigates the negative effects of N on fungal network complexity and stability.  

These results highlight the negative effects of N addition on soil fungal communities are more distinct compared to P addition. Changes in plant functional groups play a crucial role in shaping the structure of soil fungal communities in semi-arid grasslands under nutrient deposition. 

Contact:    

Li Yulin 

e-mail: liyl@lzb.ac.cn