Soil Water Content Shapes Microbial Community Along Gradients of Wetland Degradation on the Tibetan Plateau

Abstract

Soil microbes are important components in element cycling and nutrient supply for the development of alpine ecosystems. However, the development of microbial community compositions and networks in the context of alpine wetland degradation is unclear. We applied high-throughput 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing to track changes in microbial communities along degradation gradients from typical alpine wetland (W), to wet meadow (WM), to typical meadow (M), to grassland (G), and to desert (D) in the Zoige alpine wetland region on the Tibetan Plateau. Soil water content (SWC) decreased as wetland degradation progressed (79.4 and 9.3% in W and D soils, respectively). Total organic carbon (TOC), total nitrogen (TN), and total phosphorus (TP) increased in the soils of WM, and then decreased with alpine wetlands degradation from WM to the soils of M, G, and D, respectively. Wetland degradation did not affect microbial community richness and diversity from W soils to WM, M, and G soils, but did affect richness and diversity in D soils. Microbial community structure was strongly affected by wetland degradation, mainly due to changes in SWC, TOC, TN, and TP. SWC was the primary soil physicochemical property influencing microbial community compositions and networks. In wetland degradation areas, Actinobacteriota, Acidobacteriota, Cholorflexi, and Proteovacteria closely interacted in the microbial network. Compared to soils of W, WM, and M, Actinobacteriota played an important role in the microbial co-occurrence network of the G and D soils. This research contributes to our understanding of how microbial community composition and networks change with varied soil properties during degradation of different alpine wetlands.