Publications by authors named "Shuijin Hu"

Experimental studies have shown that symbiotic relationships between arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi and host plants can regulate soil organic carbon (SOC) storage. Although the impacts of mycorrhiza are highly context-dependent, it remains unclear how these effects vary across broad spatial scales. Based on data from 2296 field sites across grassland ecosystems of China, here we show that mycorrhizal fungi symbiosis enhances SOC storage in the topsoil and subsoil through increasing plant diversity and elevating biomass allocation to belowground.

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Article Synopsis
  • Rising levels of atmospheric CO enhance yields of indica rice more than japonica rice due to differences in the DNR1 allele, which affects nitrate-use efficiency.
  • Under elevated CO conditions, indica rice yields increased by 22.8-32.3%, while japonica yields only increased by 3.6-11.1%.
  • The indica DNR1 allele promotes genes related to nitrate transport and assimilation, suggesting it could be a valuable target for breeding programs aimed at improving rice yields and food security.
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Mycorrhizal associations drive plant community diversity and ecosystem functions. Arbuscular mycorrhiza (AM) and ectomycorrhiza (EcM) are two widespread mycorrhizal types and are thought to differentially affect plant diversity and productivity by nutrient acquisition and plant-soil feedback. However, it remains unclear how the mixture of two mycorrhizal types influences tree diversity, forest biomass, and their relationship at large spatial scales.

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Plant roots represent about a quarter of global plant biomass and constitute a primary source of soil organic carbon (C). Yet, considerable uncertainty persists regarding root litter decomposition and their responses to global change factors (GCFs). Much of this uncertainty stems from a limited understanding of the multifactorial effects of GCFs and it remains unclear how these effects are mediated by litter quality, soil conditions and microbial functionality.

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Understanding the fate of organic carbon in thawed permafrost is crucial for predicting climate feedback. While minerals and microbial necromass are known to play crucial roles in the long-term stability of organic carbon in subsoils, their exact influence on carbon persistence in Arctic permafrost remains uncertain. Our study, combining radiocarbon dating and biomarker analyses, showed that soil organic carbon in Alaskan permafrost had millennial-scale radiocarbon ages and contained only 10%-15% microbial necromass carbon, significantly lower than the global average of ~30%-60%.

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Article Synopsis
  • Mycorrhizal symbiosis plays a significant role in plant community composition and diversity, which has often been overlooked in ecological studies.
  • An analysis of data from 1315 grassland sites in China revealed that more mycorrhizal species lead to greater phylogenetic diversity and a preference for niche-based community assembly.
  • The findings highlight the importance of both mycorrhizal and non-mycorrhizal species in shaping plant communities, with mycorrhizal species promoting structured assembly while non-mycorrhizal species influence random processes.
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Atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition in forests can affect soil microbial growth and turnover directly through increasing N availability and indirectly through altering plant-derived carbon (C) availability for microbes. This impacts microbial residues (i.e.

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Soil microorganisms critically affect the ecosystem carbon (C) balance and C-climate feedback by directly controlling organic C decomposition and indirectly regulating nutrient availability for plant C fixation. However, the effects of climate change drivers such as warming, precipitation change on soil microbial communities, and C dynamics remain poorly understood. Using a long-term field warming and precipitation manipulation in a semi-arid grassland on the Loess Plateau and a complementary incubation experiment, here we show that warming and rainfall reduction differentially affect the abundance and composition of bacteria and fungi, and soil C efflux.

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Nutrient enrichment is a major global change component that often disrupts the relationship between aboveground biodiversity and ecosystem functions by promoting species dominance, altering trophic interactions, and reducing ecosystem stability. Emerging evidence indicates that nutrient enrichment also reduces soil biodiversity and weakens the relationship between belowground biodiversity and ecosystem functions, but the underlying mechanisms remain largely unclear. Here, we explore the effects of nutrient enrichment on soil properties, soil biodiversity, and multiple ecosystem functions through a 13-year field experiment.

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Global potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (NO) emissions from soil are accelerating, with increases in the proportion of reactive nitrogen emitted as NO, i.e., NO emission factor (EF).

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Organic amendments can improve soil fertility and microbial diversity, making agroecosystems more resilient to stress. However, it is uncertain whether organic amendments will enhance the functional capacity of soil microbial communities, thereby mitigating fluctuations in microbial respiration caused by environmental changes. Here, we examined the impacts of long-term organic amendments on the dynamics of microbial catabolic capacity (characterized by enzyme activities and carbon source utilization) and microbial respiration, as well as their interrelationships during a period with fluctuating temperature and rainfall in the field.

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The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau faces dramatic global change, which can greatly affect its plant growth, biomass accumulation, and carbon cycling. However, it is still unclear how belowground plant biomass, which is the major part of vegetation biomass on the plateau, changes with different environmental factors, impeding accurate prediction of ecosystem carbon cycling under future global change scenarios. To reveal the patterns of belowground biomass and root:shoot ratio with environmental factors in different vegetation types on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, we synthesized data for 158 sites from 167 publications, including 585 and 379 observations for above- and below-ground biomass, respectively.

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Soil organic carbon (C) is the largest active C pool of Earth's surface and is thus vital in sustaining terrestrial productivity and climate stability. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) form symbioses with most terrestrial plants and critically modulate soil C dynamics. Yet, it remains unclear whether and how AMF-root associations (i.

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Continued current emissions of carbon dioxide (CO ) and methane (CH ) by human activities will increase global atmospheric CO and CH concentrations and surface temperature significantly. Fields of paddy rice, the most important form of anthropogenic wetlands, account for about 9% of anthropogenic sources of CH . Elevated atmospheric CO may enhance CH production in rice paddies, potentially reinforcing the increase in atmospheric CH .

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Strongly acidic soils are characterized by high aluminum (Al) toxicity and low phosphorus (P) availability, which suppress legume plant growth and nodule development. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) stimulate rhizobia and enhance plant P uptake. However, it is unclear how this symbiotic soybean-AMF-rhizobial trio promotes soybean growth in acidic soils.

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The ongoing climate change is predicted to induce more weather extremes such as frequent drought and high-intensity precipitation events, causing more severe drying-rewetting cycles in soil. However, it remains largely unknown how these changes will affect soil nitrogen (N)-cycling microbes and the emissions of potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N O). Utilizing a field precipitation manipulation in a semi-arid grassland on the Loess Plateau, we examined how precipitation reduction (ca.

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Global climate warming may induce a positive feedback through increasing soil carbon (C) release to the atmosphere. Although warming can affect both C input to and output from soil, direct and convincing evidence illustrating that warming induces a net change in soil C is still lacking. We synthesized the results from field warming experiments at 165 sites across the globe and found that climate warming had no significant effect on soil C stock.

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Mycorrhizae are symbiotic associations between terrestrial plants and fungi in which fungi obtain nutrients in exchange for plant photosynthates. However, it remains unclear how different types of mycorrhizae affect their host interactions and productivity. Using a long-term experiment with a diversity gradient of arbuscular (AM) and ectomycorrhizal (EcM) tree species, we show that the type of mycorrhizae critically controls the effect of diversity on productivity.

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Grassland is one of the largest terrestrial biomes, providing critical ecosystem services such as food production, biodiversity conservation, and climate change mitigation. Global climate change and land-use intensification have been causing grassland degradation and desertification worldwide. As one of the primary medium for ecosystem energy flow and biogeochemical cycling, grassland carbon (C) cycling is the most fundamental process for maintaining ecosystem services.

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Plants enhance nutrient uptake in heterogeneous nutrient environments through selective root placement. Many studies have documented that plants grow better under heterogeneous than under homogeneous nutrient distribution, but comprehensive syntheses are relatively few. In a meta-analysis, we examined the effects of patch scale and contrast on plant responses by synthesizing the effects of nutrient heterogeneity on root foraging and plant growth in 131 comparative studies.

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Mycorrhizae are ubiquitous symbiotic associations between arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) and terrestrial plants, in which AMF receive photosynthates from and acquire soil nutrients for their host plants. Plant uptake of soil nitrogen (N) reduces N substrate for microbial processes that generate nitrous oxide (NO), a potent greenhouse gas. However, the underlying microbial mechanisms remain poorly understood, particularly in agroecosystems with high reactive N inputs.

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Nitrogen (N) is the most abundant mineral nutrient required by plants, and crop productivity depends heavily on N fertilization in many soils. Production and application of N fertilizers consume huge amounts of energy and substantially increase the costs of agricultural production. Excess N compounds released from agricultural systems are also detrimental to the environment.

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Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) significantly contribute to plant resource acquisition and play important roles in mediating plant interactions and soil carbon (C) dynamics. However, it remains unclear how AMF communities respond to climate change. We assessed impacts of warming and precipitation alterations (30% increase or decrease) on soil AMF communities, and examined major ecological processes shaping the AMF community assemblage in a Tibetan alpine meadow.

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Climate warming and elevated ozone (eO) are important climate change components that can affect plant growth and plant-microbe interactions. However, the resulting impact on soil carbon (C) dynamics, as well as the underlying mechanisms, remains unclear. Here, we show that warming, eO, and their combination induce tradeoffs between roots and their symbiotic arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) and stimulate organic C decomposition in a nontilled soybean agroecosystem.

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Clay minerals can adsorb both microorganisms and heavy metals. In this study, typical soil bacterium, Enterobacter sp. was applied to investigate the potential protection of the bacterial cells from Pb stress by clay minerals.

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