Simulated wind erosion and local dust deposition affect soil micro-food web by changing resource availability

Abstract

Abstract Background Wind erosion and dust deposition are the most common natural geological process in arid and semiarid areas. They significantly affect the redistribution of soil nutrients and ecosystem functioning and services. However, the effects of wind erosion and dust deposition on soil micro-food web are still poorly understood. Therefore, we conducted a field manipulative experiment to investigate the response of soil microbial and nematode communities, energy channels and their cascade effects to wind erosion and dust deposition in a semiarid grassland. Results Our results showed that wind erosion had no effect on the abundance of soil microbes and nematodes, but altered the community composition of soil food web. Wind erosion significantly increased fungivore abundance and nematode channel index, leading to a fungal-dominated energy channel, i.e., a slow energy channel. Dust deposition significantly increased soil dissolved organic carbon, microbial phospholipid fatty acids and soil nematode abundance, showing a strong bottom-up trophic cascade effect in soil food web by increasing the quantity of soil resource. Compared with control treatment, both wind erosion and dust deposition declined the complexity and stability of soil micro-food web. Conclusions Our findings offer new insight for exploring the effects of aeolian erosion process on soil food web, which can provide parameter estimation for accurate evaluation of the effects of wind erosion on ecosystem function.

Keywords

• Soil nematodes
• Soil microorganisms
• Micro-food web
• Nematode community composition
• Cascade effect