Cong Wang

• PhD
• Research Associate at Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Holo‐omics provide a novel opportunity to study the interactions among fungi from different functional guilds in host plants in field conditions. We address the entangled responses of plant pathogenic and endophytic fungi associated with sorghum when droughted through the assembly of the most abundant fungal, endophyte genome from rhizospheric meta...

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) mediated diversification is a critical force driving evolutionary and ecological processes. However, how HGT might relate to anthropogenic activity such as nitrogen addition, and its subsequent effect on functional diversity and cooccurrence networks remain unknown. Here we approach this knowledge gap by blending bact...

Bacterial gene repertoires reflect adaptive strategies, contribute to ecosystem functioning and are limited by genome size. However, gene functional diversity does not necessarily correlate with taxonomic diversity because average genome size may vary by community. Here, we analyse gene functional diversity (by shotgun metagenomics) and taxonomic d...

For many years, there has been a prevailing belief that the activity of soil microorganisms in tropical forests is limited by the availability of phosphorus (P). This belief has traditionally found support in experimental research, consistently demonstrating that the addition of P leads to an increase in heterotrophic soil respiration. However, we...

Soil enzyme activity can be affected by both production and degradation processes, as enzymes can be degraded by proteases. However, the impact of nutrient addition on enzyme activity is often solely attributed to changes in enzyme production without fully considering degradation. In this study, we demonstrate that the activities of β-1,4-glucosida...

Soil enzyme activity can be affected by both production and degradation, as enzymes can be degraded by proteases. However, the impact of nutrient addition on enzyme activity is often solely attributed to changes in enzyme production without fully considering degradation. Here, we demonstrated that the activities of β-1,4-glucosidase (BG), β-D-cello...

Although microbes are the major agent of wood decomposition - a key component of the carbon cycle - the degree to which microbial community dynamics affect this process is unclear. One key knowledge gap is the extent to which stochastic variation in community assembly, e.g. due to historical contingency, can substantively affect decomposition rates...

Aims Soil microorganisms in tropical forests can adapt to P-poor conditions by changing the activity ratios of different types of phosphatases. We tested whether microorganisms in P-poor tropical forest soils increased the phosphomonoesterase (PME) to phosphodiesterase (PDE) activity ratio, because a one-step enzymatic reaction of monoester P degra...

Elucidating the temporal dynamics of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi is critical for understanding their functions. Furthermore, research investigating the temporal dynamics of AM fungi in response to agricultural practices remains in its infancy. We investigated the effect of nitrogen fertilisation and watering reduction on the temporal dynamics...

Human activities have disturbed global phosphorus (P) cycling by introducing substantial amounts of P to natural ecosystems. Although natural P gradients and fertilization studies have found that plant community traits are closely related to P availability, it remains unclear how increased P supply affects plant growth and diversity in P-deficient...

Humid tropical forests are commonly characterized as N-rich but P-deficient. Increased N deposition may drive N saturation and aggravate P limitation in tropical forests. Thus, P addition is proposed to mitigate the negative effects of N deposition by stimulating N cycling. However, little is known regarding the effect of altered N and P supply on...

We investigated the impacts of 14-year continuous N addition on activities of arylsulfatase (AS) and phosphodiesterase (PDE), which catalyze soil organic sulfur (S) and phosphorus (P), respectively. The response of AS to N addition was compared with that of C- and N-acquiring enzymes, i.e., β-1,4-glucosidase (BG), β-D-cellobiohydrolase (CBH), β-1,4...

Purpose Phosphorus (P) addition could largely alter soil microbial activity. However, effects of long-term P addition on soil extracellular enzyme activity are not well understood in tropical forests. Materials and methods To address this question, we measured absolute activities (activity per unit of dry soil) and specific activities (activity pe...

Anthropogenic nitrogen (N) deposition, mainly driven by reactive N emissions from agricultural and industrial activities, has been enhanced dramatically in China. The enhancement of N deposition has aroused increasing concerns about its effects on ecosystem health and function. Forest covers more than one fifth of the national land area in China an...

The prevailing paradigm for soil microbial activity in tropical forests is that microbial activity is limited by phosphorus (P) availability. Thus, exogenous P addition should increase rates of organic matter decomposition. Studies have also confirmed that soil respiration is accelerated when P is added experimentally. However, we hypothesize that...

Because potassium (K) is a rock-derived essential element that can be depleted in highly-weathered tropical soils, K availability may limit some portion of soil microbial activity in tropical forest ecosystems. In this paper we tested if K limits microbial activity in the condition of sufficient labile C supply. An incubation experiment was perform...

Elevated anthropogenic nitrogen (N) deposition is suggested to affect ecosystem phosphorus (P) cycling through altered biotic P demand and soil acidification. To date, however, there has been little information on how long-term N deposition regulates P fluxes in tropical forests, where P is often depleted. To address this question, we conducted a l...

Reforested ecosystems are becoming a dominant forest cover type in the tropics where anthropogenic nitrogen (N) deposition has been increasing greatly. Although understory plants play an important role in ecosystem structure and functioning, it remains unclear how long-term N deposition affects eco-physiological traits of understory species. To add...