Abstract
The soil fungal community is an important factor in the forest ecosystems, and a better understanding of its composition and dynamic changes will contribute to the maintenance, preservation, and sustainable development of the forest ecosystems. Pinus tabuliformis has been widely planted for local ecological restoration on the Loess Plateau in China in recent decades. However, these plantations have been degraded to different degrees with increasing stand age. Hence, we tried to find the possible causes for the plantation degradation by analyzing soil environmental changes and soil fungal community composition at different stand ages. We collected rhizosphere soil samples from young (10-year-old), middle-aged (20-year-old), and near-mature (30-year-old) P. tabuliformis plantations in this region and characterized their soil properties and soil fungal community diversity and composition. Our results showed that with increasing stand age, the contents of organic carbon, ammonium nitrogen (AN) and nitrate nitrogen (NN) in the soil increased significantly, while the content of available phosphorus (AP) decreased significantly. The main factors affecting the composition of the soil fungal community were the contents of AP, AN, and NN in the soil. In addition, the genus Suillus was the dominant ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungus in all periods of P. tabuliformis plantations in this region. The results of structural equation modeling showed that the community composition of ECM fungi was significantly correlated with stand age, soil NN, and AP contents, and that of pathogenic (PAG) fungi was significantly correlated with soil AN and AP contents. The decrease in the relative abundance of ECM fungi and the increase in the relative abundance of PAG fungi would exacerbate the degradation of P. tabulaeformis plantation. Our results illustrated that the content of soil AP is not only an important factor limiting the development of plantations, but it also significantly affects the community composition of soil fungi in the rhizosphere of the P. tabuliformis plantation. This study provides a novel insight into the degradation of P. tabuliformis plantations and builds a solid foundation for their subsequent management, restoration, and sustainable development on the Loess Plateau of China.