Characteristics of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities in urban park soils under different urbanization intensities in Nanchang

This study explored the soil arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal communities in park green spaces under the context of urbanization, aimed to provide foundational data support for the soil microbial diversity and ecological conservation of parks in Nanchang City.

In this study, three urbanization gradient levels (high, medium, and low) were divided according to the proportion of impervious surface area in the built-up area of Nanchang City, and 63 sample plots of park green space soil were sampled and investigated. High-throughput sequencing technology was used to detect the community characteristics of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi in the soil, analyze the differences in the structural composition, Alpha diversity and Beta diversity of AM fungal communities, and reveal the correlation between AM fungal communities and soil physicochemical properties through RDA analysis.

The AM fungal communities in the park green spaces of Nanchang City were predominantly composed of dominant genera such as Glomus and Paraglomus. The Shannon and Simpson indices exhibited a significant logarithmic increase with rising urbanization intensity by 3.89% and 1.90%, whereas the Dominance index showed a significant logarithmic decrease by 44.36%. Soil pH value, electrical conductivity, soil organic carbon content and total nitrogen content were positively correlated with the abundance of genera such as Glomus, Claroideoglomus, Scutellospora and Gigaspora; total potassium content, moisture content and soil bulk density were positively correlated with the abundance of genera such as Archaeospora and Diversispora, and soil total phosphorus content was positively correlated with the abundance of genera such as Paraglomus.

With the increase in urbanization intensity, species diversity and community evenness of AM fungi communities increased, while the dominance of the dominant genera weakened. Soil physicochemical factors such as soil organic carbon, pH value, total phosphorus content, and total potassium content play a key role in influencing the composition of AM fungal communities.