Soil bacterial community structure and co‐occurrence networks in response to the succession of secondary forests in subtropical regions

Abstract A large amount of secondary successional vegetation (subtropical evergreen broadleaved forests) has formed after the extensive deforestation and cultivation of coniferous forests in Wuyi Mountain, Southeast China. However, we lack a detailed understanding of the dynamic changes in microbial community structure and its co‐occurrence network during succession. The features that are responsible for alterations in the soil bacterial community remain poorly defined. Therefore, we compared the soil physicochemical properties, enzyme activities, and bacterial diversity among three different forests (a coniferous forest [CF], early stage of succession; a mixed conifer‐broadleaf forest [CBMF], middle stage of succession; an evergreen broadleaf forest [EBF]; late stage of succession). Results indicated that the contents of soil organic carbon and microbial biomass carbon (MBC) in CBMF were higher compared with those in CF. The alpha diversity indices were the highest in CBMF. Functional annotation of prokaryotic taxa predicted the relative abundances of chemoheterotrophy and aerobic chemoheterotrophy were lower in CF than in the other two forests. Bacterial network topology was affected by forest succession, with CBMF having more complex bacterial networks. Mantel's test indicated the soil nitrate nitrogen content (P = 0.03) was the most important property that shaped the bacterial community composition, bacterial diversity was influenced by soil pH (P = 0.026), and the contents of available phosphorus (P = 0.04) and MBC (P = 0.022) during the succession process. In conclusion, the succession of secondary forests promoted soil nutrient accumulation and improved bacterial diversity and network complexity.