Underground Explorers

The cooccurrence of global change factors (GCF), e.g., overgrazing combined with drought and climate changes, is a main reason leading to degradation of local grassland. We have conducted a two-factor experiment. One factor is an increasing number of GCFs, with 0, 1, 2, 4, 6 GCFs, following our previous study (Rillig et al. 2019, Science). Another factor is the practice of soil transfer and reseeding native species. There are 144 plots in total. We will test (1) an increasing number of global change factors will lead to the loss of AMF diversity and a decrease in abundance but will select those slow-growing taxa with high resistance; (2) a combined restoration of vegetation and soil communities can enhance the resistance AMF communities to multiple global change factors.