Responses of Soil Microbial Survival Strategies and Functional Changes to Wet–Dry Cycle Events

Abstract

Soil microbial taxa have different functional ecological characteristics that influence the direction and intensity of plant–soil feedback responses to changes in the soil environment. However, the responses of soil microbial survival strategies to wet and dry events are poorly understood. In this study, soil physicochemical properties, enzyme activity, and high–throughput sequencing results were comprehensively anal0079zed in the irrigated cropland ecological zone of the northern plains of the Yellow River floodplain of China, where Oryza sativa was grown for a long period of time, converted to Zea mays after a year, and then Glycine max was planted. The results showed that different plant cultivations in a paddy–dryland rotation system affected soil physicochemical properties and enzyme activity, and G. max field cultivation resulted in higher total carbon, total nitrogen, soil total organic carbon, and available nitrogen content while significantly increasing α–glucosidase, β–glucosidase, and alkaline phosphatase activities in the soil. In addition, crop rotation altered the r/K–strategist bacteria, and the soil environment was the main factor affecting the community structure of r/K–strategist bacteria. The co–occurrence network revealed the inter–relationship between r/K–strategist bacteria and fungi, and with the succession of land rotation, the G. max sample plot exhibited more stable network relationships. Random forest analysis further indicated the importance of soil electrical conductivity, total carbon, total nitrogen, soil total organic carbon, available nitrogen, and α–glucosidase in the composition of soil microbial communities under wet–dry events and revealed significant correlations with r/K–strategist bacteria. Based on the functional predictions of microorganisms, wet–dry conversion altered the functions of bacteria and fungi and led to a more significant correlation between soil nutrient cycling taxa and environmental changes. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of microbial functional groups while helping to further our understanding of the potential functions of soil microbial functional groups in soil ecosystems.