Recently, Prof. Wang Chuankuan, a researcher in our university's ecological research center, has been awarded a Ph.D. degree. His published works in the fields of Global Ecology and Biogeography (IF = 6.045) and Soil Biology and Biochemistry (Soil and Natural Science Area 1, IF = 4.857) are entitled “Effects of forest degradation on microbial communities and soil carbon cycling: A global meta-analysis” and “Trends in soil microbial communities during secondary succession”. Exploration from two different microbial classification systems for the first time scale and the succession of the macroscopic ecology interference theory in the application of micro soil microbial ecology, and global data integration analysis found that the ecological countermeasure theory and succession interference theory can successfully explain the progress in ecosystem succession and retrogressive succession of soil microbial community composition and structure evolution, not only promoting the development of the soil microbial ecology, but also playing an important role in soil carbon sequestration and ecosystem modeling.

Soil microorganisms are an indispensable component of terrestrial ecosystems and are important regulators of biogeochemical cycles. Their roles in ecosystem stability, productivity and carbon sequestration, ecosystem services, biodiversity conservation and more play an irreplaceable role. However, the extremely complex structure of the soil microbial community, with 1 gram of soil containing up to 1 billion bacterial and fungal cells, consisting of tens of thousands of taxonomic units, poses a great challenge to micro-ecological research. Authors, Zhou Zhenghu (PhD student) and, Professor Wang Chuankuan introduced that the research team successfully applied macroecological theory to microbiology research and found that K-countermeasures microorganisms were becoming more and more dominant, while R-countermeasures microbes were becoming more dominant during the process of forest degradation (retrograde succession). They also found that microbial communities dominated by K-measures favored the retention of soil organic carbon, while r-measures dominated microbial communities emitted more soil carbon into the atmosphere. These results will not only stimulate the theoretical study of microbial ecology, but also promote the mechanism of soil microbial-mediated carbon cycle.

This research has been supported by the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” scientific and technological support project, the Yangtze River Scholar and Innovation Team Development plan and the basic research project of the central universities.