Bacterial and Fungal Communities Respond Differently to Changing Soil Properties Along Afforestation Dynamic.

ABSTRACT: Spontaneous afforestation following land abandonment has been increasingly recognized as a nature-based solution to mitigate climate change and provide measurable benefits to biodiversity. However, afforestation effects on biodiversity, particularly on soil microbial communities, are still poorly characterized, with most previous studies focusing on artificial plantations rather than forest rewilding dynamics. Here, we assessed changes in topsoil physical-chemical properties and related dynamics of bacterial and fungal community composition and structure following spontaneous afforestation of abandoned grasslands in Northeast Italy over the last 70 years. With a space-for-time approach, we selected four chronosequences representing different successional stages: grassland, early (2000-2020

SUBMITTER: Panico SC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11799125 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature