Decoupled recovery of soil physicochemistry, microbiome and methane sink function during secondary forest succession in the Eastern Himalayas
- 1Peking University College of Urban and Environmental Sciences
Abstract
Secondary forests are increasingly important for biodiversity recovery and ecosystem functioning after disturbance. As vegetation regenerates, accompanying shifts in soil conditions and microbial communities regulate climate-relevant processes such as atmospheric methane (CH4) uptake. Whether these belowground dimensions recover synchronously, however, remains unclear. Here we show that belowground recovery followed asynchronous trajectories across a forest chronosequence in Metok, Eastern Himalayas. Soil inorganic properties and microbial community composition converged progressively on the primary-forest state as soils acidified. By contrast, soil organic carbon, microbial diversity and abundance appeared to recover by 25 years but diverged again at 40 years. Co-occurrence network topology resembled the primary forest by 40 years, yet the keystone taxa underlying it were entirely stage specific. Atmospheric CH4 uptake fluctuated: uptake recovered to primary-forest levels in 25-year stands but weakened in 40-year stands to rates comparable with the recently disturbed 5-year forest. Rather than canonical methane-cycling taxa, four amplicon sequence variants---three assigned to \textit{Mycobacterium}---tracked CH4 flux closely while acting as hubs or connectors in the co-occurrence networks, warranting genomic and experimental work to resolve their function. Apparent recovery within the first 25 years therefore did not persist, cautioning against inferring restoration success from early succession alone and highlighting the need for longer chronosequences and repeated observation to resolve the dynamics of secondary-forest recovery.
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BibTeX
@misc{zhang2026decoupled,
title = {{Decoupled recovery of soil physicochemistry, microbiome and methane sink function during secondary forest succession in the Eastern Himalayas}},
author = {M. Zhang and X. Zhao and Y. Zhao and D. Shi and W. Fu and C. Yang and H. Yu},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.64898/2026.10.04.753464},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.04.753464v1},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Decoupled recovery of soil physicochemistry, microbiome and methane sink function during secondary forest succession in the Eastern Himalayas
AU - M. Zhang
AU - X. Zhao
AU - Y. Zhao
AU - D. Shi
AU - W. Fu
AU - C. Yang
AU - H. Yu
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/04
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.10.04.753464
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.04.753464v1
AB - Secondary forests are increasingly important for biodiversity recovery and ecosystem functioning after disturbance. As vegetation regenerates, accompanying shifts in soil conditions and microbial communities regulate climate-relevant processes such as atmospheric methane (CH_4) uptake. Whether these belowground dimensions recover synchronously, however, remains unclear. Here we show that belowground recovery followed asynchronous trajectories across a forest chronosequence in Metok, Eastern Himalayas. Soil inorganic properties and microbial community composition converged progressively on the primary-forest state as soils acidified. By contrast, soil organic carbon, microbial diversity and abundance appeared to recover by 25 years but diverged again at 40 years. Co-occurrence network topology resembled the primary forest by 40 years, yet the keystone taxa underlying it were entirely stage specific. Atmospheric CH_4 uptake fluctuated: uptake recovered to primary-forest levels in 25-year stands but weakened in 40-year stands to rates comparable with the recently disturbed 5-year forest. Rather than canonical methane-cycling taxa, four amplicon sequence variants---three assigned to \textit{Mycobacterium}---tracked CH_4 flux closely while acting as hubs or connectors in the co-occurrence networks, warranting genomic and experimental work to resolve their function. Apparent recovery within the first 25 years therefore did not persist, cautioning against inferring restoration success from early succession alone and highlighting the need for longer chronosequences and repeated observation to resolve the dynamics of secondary-forest recovery.
ER -