Jinchi Zhang

• Professor
• Nanjing Forestry University

Aims Microbial inoculants play important roles in the remediation of abandoned mine sites by stimulating plant growth. However, further investigations are required to elucidate their impacts on soil microbial communities and metabolites in this process. Methods For this study, we employed amplicon sequencing and Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass S...

Global‐scale mining activities have had significant deleterious impacts on local ecosystems and the overall environment, which will necessitate robust restoration efforts. A practical approach includes combining microbial inoculants with the technology of external soil spray seeding. This approach holds the potential for sustainable abandoned mine...

The application of microbial inoculants holds promise for the sustainable restoration of abandoned mine sites by affecting soil nutrients and microbial communities. However, the responses of plant microbial communities to microbial inoculants in mine restoration remain largely unknown. To bridge this knowledge gap, we conducted a 4‐year field exper...

Peat is typically used as a carrier for microbial inoculants; however, due to its non-renewable nature alternatives need to be identified as reliable and renewable carriers for mineral-solubilizing inoculants. In pot experiments, solid microbial inoculants were comprised of peat (P), biochar (BC), and spent mushroom substrates (SMS) using Medicago...

Continuously rising sea levels pose severe threats to the diversity and stability of coastal ecosystems. However, the responses of endospheric and rhizospheric arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal communities to accelerated seawater intrusion and changing vegetation types unfortunately remains unknown. Such insights will assist in revealing the struc...

Landslides are widespread geomorphological phenomena with complex mechanisms that have caused extensive causalities and property damage worldwide. The scale and frequency of landslides are presently increasing owing to the warming effects of climate change, which further increases the associated safety risks. In this study, the relationship between...

The application of mineral-solubilizing microbial inoculums is a biological strategy used for the restoration of vegetation at rock mining sites. These inoculums improve soil fertility, enhance plant growth, and accelerate soil weathering. However, their impacts on rhizospheric soil microbial communities are not well understood. This study aimed to...

Not enough research has been conducted on the mechanisms influencing the stability of soil aggregates in coastal saline–alkaline soil and the dynamic changes in aggregates in the succession process of coastal saline–alkaline soil brought on by longer planting times. In this study, soil aggregate composition, stability, and influencing factors of 0–...

Seawater intrusion and fluctuations in the water table in coastal areas lead to seasonal variations in soil salinity and pH, which greatly limit the development of coastal protection forests. In a 3-year field study, the impact of five soil amendment measures were evaluated on soil conditions in coastal areas. Amendments included biochar, biochar w...

Microbial inoculation involves transplanting microorganisms from their natural habitat to new plants or soils to improve plant performance, and it is being increasingly used in agriculture and ecological restoration. However, microbial inoculants can invade and alter the composition of native microbial communities; thus, a comprehensive analysis is...

This study investigates the structure and functional groups of soil fungal communities in major vegetation types in subtropical China. The main objective is to understand the responses of these communities to different vegetation types, and the influence of soil properties, such as soil organic carbon (SOC), pH, soil ammonium nitrogen (AN), availab...

Acid rain and nitrogen deposition are emerging as global scale environmental issues due to increasing industrial emissions and agricultural pollutants, which seriously impac t the sustainable development of global ecosystems. However, the specific effects both acid rain and nitrogen deposition interactions on forest soil ecosystems, particularly as...

Introduction The stability of exposed slopes is prone to natural disasters, seriously threatening socio-economic and human security. Through years of exploration and research, we proposed an active permanent greening (APG) method based on patented mineral solubilizing microorganisms (MSMs) as an improvement over the traditional greening method. Me...

Saline–alkali soils exhibit ionic toxicities associated with neutral salinity, as well as a high pH that hinders the exclusion of sodium ions and absorption of vital nutrients; thus, obstructing the development of coastal shelterbelts. A three-year field experiment using a high-soil-pH site was conducted for this study to investigate the influences...

The mining industry continues to have considerable adverse effects on ecosystems, which necessitates the development of robust and effective strategies for the remediation of abandoned mine sites. One such approach involves the integration of mineral‐solubilizing microorganisms into existing external soil spray seeding technologies. These microorga...

Introduction With social and economic development and the associated large-scale exploitation of natural resources, the number of slopes has significantly increased. As slope instability can lead to serious geological disasters, the ecological protection and reconstruction of slopes has become a hot topic of common global concern. Methods In order...

Microbial inoculants, transplanting microorganisms from their natural habitat to improve plant performance, hold promise for sustainable agriculture and ecological restoration but also raise a potential concern as a purposeful invasion to alter soil resident communities. Current studies have mainly focused on the impact of microbial inoculants on a...

The mining industry has a significant negative impact on ecosystems, and the remediation of abandoned mining sites requires effective strategies. One promising approach is the incorporation of mineral-solubilizing microorganisms into current external soil spray seeding technologies. These microorganisms possess the ability to decrease mineral parti...

Fine root decomposition plays a vital role in driving the carbon cycle in terrestrial ecosystems, as it constitutes a substantial part of annual net primary production and, as transient tissues, returns to the soil within relatively short timescales. Soil fungal communities and enzyme activities strongly influence this process. In this study, we us...

Aims: Changes in root system architecture (RSA) and soil depth affect the root decomposition rate. However, due to soil opacity, many variables of RSA have not been well studied or even measured. Methods: To investigate the effects of soil depth and the characteristics of RSA on the root decomposition rate, soil samples (Soil cores were collected i...

Purpose This study investigates the structure and functional groups of soil fungal communities in major vegetation types in subtropical China. The main objective is to understand the responses of these communities to different vegetation types, and the influence of soil properties, such as soil organic carbon (SOC), pH, soil ammonium nitrogen (AN),...

Soil salinization is considered a type of global-scale soil degradation, whereby excessive salinity severely diminishes soil health, which is primarily manifested through disrupted soil structures and reduced fertility. Furthermore, plant growth capacity is inhibited, and productivity is diminished. Consequently, the improvement of saline soils is...

Toward the restoration of the increasing numbers of abandoned mines across China, external-soil spray seeding technologies have become more extensively utilized. However, considerable challenges remain that seriously hamper the effectiveness of these technologies, such as inadequate nutrient availability for plants. Previous studies have shown that...

Soil degradation resulting from human trampling in urban forest parks can negatively impact the taxonomic diversity and function of soil microbial communities. In this study, we established long-term, fixed large plots in Zijin Mountain Urban Forest Park in Nanjing, China, to assess the level of trampling pressure. Soil samples were collected from...

Microbial inoculants can be used to restore abandoned mines because of their positive effects on plant growth and soil nutrients. Currently, soils in greenhouse pot studies are routinely sterilized to eradicate microorganisms, allowing for better inoculant colonization. Large-scale field sterilization of abandoned mining site soils for restoration...

Aims Changes in root structure and soil depth affect root decomposition. However, due to soil opacity, many variables of root structure have not been well studied and even measured. Methods To investigate the effects of soil depth and the characteristics of root structure on root decomposition, soil samples (In-situ soil core of 10cm diameter and...

Due to increases in travel and tourism, the effects of trampling by humans at popular tourist sites have intensified and they can potentially negatively affect the soil quality. In the present study, we investigated the effects of various human trampling intensities on the soil quality in Zijin Mountain Urban Forest Park. The incessant growth of to...

Microbial weathering processes can significantly promote soil properties and reduce rock-to-soil ratio. Some soil-inhabiting bacteria exhibit efficient rock-dissolution abilities by releasing organic acids and other chemical elements from the silicate rocks. However, our understanding of the molecular mechanisms involved during bacterial rock-disso...

Rocky slopes are vulnerable to landslides and mudslides, which pose a major threat to human life and property. Research is being conducted to improve the adhesion between soil and minerals by mineral-solubilizing bacteria to manage slopes scientifically and develop novel methods for slope greening. From the soil of Nanjing Mufu Mountain’s weathered...

A series of ecological restoration programs (ERPs) have been implemented in the Qinghai‐Tibet Plateau to reverse ecological deterioration. However, the multiple ecological benefits of these ERPs and their driving factors remain unclear. This study analyzed the dynamic changes in fractional vegetation cover (FVC), ecosystem services (water yield (WY...

With the intensification of coastal erosion, damage to coastal shelterbelts has gradually increased. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) can improve the salinity tolerance and productivity of plants in saline–alkali soils using various strategies including nutrient uptake, osmotic regulation, soil shaping, etc. Thus, the application of AMF to allevi...

Aims: Microbial inoculants can be used to restore abandoned mines because of their positive effects on plant growth and soil nutrients. Currently, soils in greenhouse pot studies are routinely sterilized to eradicate microorganisms, allowing for better inoculant colonization. Large-scale field sterilization of abandoned mining site soils for restor...

Assessment of soil quality in different vegetation types of wetland ecosystems is essential for soil functioning, such as nutrient cycling and vegetation growth, particularly the maintenance of wetland ecosystem sustainability. Wetland degradation can extremely influence soil quality. However, prediction of soil quality in terms of soil quality ind...

Gleditsia sinensis is a valuable tree species with important pharmaceutical uses. However, high soil NaCl concentration limits its growth in saline soil, including coastal areas. This study aimed to investigate the effects of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) on G. sinensis salinity tolerance and reveal its underlying physiological mechanism. A gr...

Towards the improvement of plant productivity in saline-alkali soils, the application of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) is an intensive topic of research. For this study, three inoculation treatments, namely, autoclaved AMF inocula (CK), Funneliformis mosseae (FM), and Corymbiglomus tortuosum (CT), and four NaCl levels, namely, 0, 50, 100, and...

The stability of soil aggregates is critical for maintaining soil structures and is positively correlated with soil resident organic and inorganic colloids. Forest conversion and soil depth affects the formation of soil aggregates; however, the detailed mechanisms involved in their stabilization have not been well investigated. Therefore, to explor...

Soil aggregates are the basic structural components of soil, which are important factors that can predict erosion resistance. However, few researchers have investigated the effects of forest conversion on the stability of soil aggregates, particularly in subtropical forests. In this study, soils from various depths (0 to 30 cm) were collected from...

Understanding impacts of land use/cover (LULC) and climate change ecosystem services (ESs) is critical to human well-being. However, existing studies seldom determined the relative contributions of LULC and climate change to ESs from a geospatial perspective, and the impacts of different LULC conversions on ESs remain unclear. This study establishe...

Background Soil acidification caused by acid rain (AR) can damage plant roots, which in turn negatively impacts plant health. In response to changing AR types, research efforts to elucidate their specific impacts on plants have become intense. Methods For this study, we investigated the effects of simulated sulfuric, nitric, and mixed AR on the ro...

Background: Soil acidification caused by acid rain (AR) can damage plant roots, which in turn negatively impacts plant health. In response to changing AR types, research efforts to elucidate their specific impacts on plants have become intense. Methods: For this study, we investigated the effects of simulated sulfuric, nitric, and mixed AR on the r...

Although microorganisms play a key role in the carbon cycle of the Poyang Lake wetland, the relationship between soil microbial community structure and organic carbon characteristics is unknown. Herein, high-throughput sequencing technology was used to explore the effects of water level (low and high levels above the water table) and vegetation typ...

Enzymatic saccharification of corn stover can be enhanced by partially replacing commercial enzymes with bacterial crude enzyme extracts. Thus, in this study, three bacteria (Bacillus sp. A0, Bacillus sp. CH20S1, and Exiguobacterium sp. AS2B) were cultured in a media with corn stover as the substrate to produce crude enzyme extract and saccharify c...

The biological pretreatment for the enzymatic hydrolysis of lignocellulosic biomasses depends exclusively on the effective pretreatment process. Herein, we report a significant enhancement of enzymatic saccharification obtained with corn stover using a bacterial strain Bacillus sp. P3. The hemicellulose removal from corn stover by the strain Bacill...

In this study, a new method based on field dye-tracing experiments was used to assess hydrological connectivity below the soil surface. In this method, Phragmites australis in the Yellow River Delta wetland was considered to characterize the interaction between roots systems and hydrological connectivity. The results showed that index of hydrologic...

Microbial weathering processes can significantly promote soil properties and enhance rock to soil ratio. Some soil-inhabiting bacteria exhibit efficient rock-dissolution abilities by releasing organic acids and other chemical elements from the silicate rocks. However, our understanding of the molecular mechanisms involved during bacterial rock-diss...

The general predictions of climate impacts on species shifts (e.g., upward shift) cannot directly inform local species conservation, because local‐scale studies find divergent patterns instead of a general one. For example, our previous study found three shift patterns with elevation (strong down‐, moderate down‐, and up‐slope shifts) in temperate...

Background China has been increasingly subject to significant acid rain, which has negative impacts on forest ecosystems. Recently, the concentrations of NO 3 ⁻ in acid rain have increased in conjunction with the rapid rise of nitrogen deposition, which makes it difficult to precisely quantify the impacts of acid rain on forest ecosystems. Methods...

Labile fractions of soil carbon pools are sensitive to environmental changes, which would influence the stabilization of soil carbon. However, it is unclear whether the dynamics of labile organic carbon (LOC) and soil organic carbon (SOC) are coupled and how they influence each other in coastal wetland. The present work investigated the trends of s...

As an important plant resource in China, medicinal plants dominate the Chinese herbal medicine market. The intensified human activities and the deteriorated ecological environment have caused the reduction or even extinction of medicinal plants nationwide. The artificial bionic cultivation of medicinal plants has become an important way for the hea...

Understanding how the biological invasion is driven by environmental factors will improve model prediction and advance early detection, especially in the context of accelerating anthropogenic ecological changes. Although a large body of studies has examined how favorable environments promote biological invasions, a more comprehensive and mechanisti...

Projecting invasion treatment outcomes and determining controlling efficiency under various management strategies have important implications in field management. Different from herbicide usage that may cause environmental pollution and nontarget effects on native plants, nonchemical (i.e., mechanical) methods, such as mowing and hand weeding, have...

The biological pretreatment for the enzymatic hydrolysis of lignocellulosic biomasses largely depends on an effective pretreatment process. A significant enhancement of enzymatic saccharification was obtained with corn stover using Bacillus sp. P3. The hemicellulose removal from corn stover by the strain Bacillus sp. P3 was evaluated for enhancing...

The harm of acid rain (AR) to plants foliage is mainly manifested by changing their physiological and biochemical processes, such as chlorosis, nutrient loss, enzyme activity changes, etc., which in turn impacts plant growth. Since the types of AR in China is changing, the response of plants to different types of AR has become a research hotspot. I...

[Background] The key to integrated watershed management is to take simultaneous account of environmental, economic, and social development goals; hence, a multi-objective decision making approach is required. However, our understanding and application of multi-objective decision making in watershed management remains limited. [Objective] The object...

A new honeycomb-like 2D Metal-organic polyhedral framework, {Cu3.75(BrCPEIP)2.5·(H2O)2.75·DMF}n (NJFU-5, H3BrCPEIP = 5-((3-bromo-5-carboxyphenyl)ethynyl)isophthalic acid) was solvothermally synthesized and structurally characterized, which shows a BET surface area of 473 m² g⁻¹. Meanwhile, NJFU exhibits a comparably higher CO2 adsorption capacity o...

Enzymatic saccharification of corn stover can be enhanced by partially replacing commercial enzymes with bacterial crude enzyme extracts. Three bacteria, Bacillus sp. A0, Bacillus sp. CH20S1, and Exiguobacterium sp. AS2B, were cultured in a media with corn stover as the substrate. The cultural conditions were monitored and optimized to maximize CMC...

Pine wilt disease is a devastating forest disease caused by the pinewood nematode Bursaphelenchus xylophilus, which has been listed as the object of quarantine in China. Climate change influences species and may exacerbate the risk of forest diseases, such as the pine wilt disease. The maximum entropy (MaxEnt) model was used in this study to identi...

Shear strength is an important mechanical property of soil, as its mechanical function plays critical roles in reducing land degradation and preventing soil erosion. However, shear strength may be affected by vegetation type through changes in the soil and root patterns. To understand the influences of different types of vegetation on shear strengt...

Rainfall is an indispensable link in the atmospheric water cycle, which plays a critical role in forest hydrology. Quercus acutissima and Cunninghamia lanceolata are two fast-growing and economically important tree species in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. They are extensively applied in the restoration of vegetation, hydraulic...

Anthropogenic overexploitation poses significant threats to the ecosystems that surround mining sites, which also have tremendous negative impacts on human health and society safety. The technological capacity of the ecological restoration of mine sites is imminent, however, it remains a challenge to sustain the green restorative effects of ecologi...

Ecosystems are severely damaged with rising global temperatures, the rapid increase in population and the continuous exploitation and utilization of natural resources. The selection of conservation priorities is of great significance to regional ecological security and sustainable development. Here we identified conservation priorities by balancing...

1. Hyphantria cunea is a problematic invasive species that has caused considerable damage to agricultural and forestry ecosystems in China. 2. We compared 19 bioclimate variables between its native country (the United States of America) and China to elucidate the environmental factors associated with its presence. Using present climate data (1970–2...

Background: Abandoned mining sites are becoming increasingly common due to anthropogenic activities. Consequently, external-soil spray seeding technology has attracted increasing attention as a strategy to remediate them. However, significant challenges remain that greatly inhibit the efficacy of such technologies, such as insufficient nutrients av...

As a well-known Chinese important medicine, Dendrobium resources are increasingly scarce. In order to avoid the quality problems caused by blind cultivation, we predicted the ecologically suitable areas for three species of important Dendrobium species. In this paper, using the maximum entropy model and ArcGIS, we used a database and literature sea...

Background Soil microbiomes play important roles in invasion biology, yet it is often treated as a ‘black box’ in modeling or large-scale field studies. Hence, investigating the change of association between invasive vegetation and soil microbes under changing environmental conditions, and exploring the genetic functions of associated microbiomes w...

China has recently undergone rapid economic development. However, it is the third-largest acid rain region in the world after Europe and North America, and the acid rain problem in the Yangtze River Delta region is particularly serious. Over recent years, the type of acid rain in the Yangtze River Delta region has changed from sulfuric acid rain (S...

To protect endangered species and restore their habitats, it is important to be able to predict their potential geographic distributions. The Dendrobium plant is important in traditional Chinese medicine, but urban expansion and over-exploitation have led to a decrease of Dendrobium resources. To achieve sustainable development of Dendrobium resour...

There has been a rapid increase in abandoned mines across China, Consequently, external-soil spray seeding technologies have emerged as a common method for their remediation. However, slope soils are typically unstable and easily collapsed and the nutrients absorbed by plants are insufficient, which complicate ecological restoration. For this study...

Background The distribution and use of camphor (Cinnamomum camphora L.) trees are constrained by increasing soil salinity in south-eastern China along the Yangtze River. However, the response mechanism of this species to salinity, especially in team of photosynthesis, are unknown. Methods Here, we analysed themorphological, physiological, ultrastru...

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) form a near-ubiquitous mutualistic association with roots to help plants withstand harsh environments, and play a key role in the establishment of coastal beach plant communities. Yet little is known about the structure and composition of AMF communities on coastal beaches of eastern China. In this study, we inves...

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi enhance plant salt tolerance. However, physiological mechanisms of enhanced salt tolerance in leaves and roots of trees rarely have been compared. To reveal the different mechanisms, our study utilized comprehensive analyses of leaves and roots to examine the effects of Funneliformis mosseae on the salinity toleran...

Long term land-use change, such as forest conversion, has been shown to strongly affect soil pore properties. The soil pores mediate soil processes and determine how soil functions. Despite their importance for understanding biological, water, and carbon stability, the properties of soil pores following long term forest conversion remain unclear in...

Dendrobium is widely used in traditional Chinese medicine, which contains many kinds of active ingredients. In recent years, many Dendrobium transcriptomes have been sequenced. Hence, weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) was used with the gene expression profiles of active ingredients to identify the modules and genes that may assoc...

Acid rain (AR) is a serious issue in China, particularly in the Yangtze River Delta region where the economy has undergone rapid development. Over the last few years, the composition of acid rain in the Yangtze River Delta region has gradually changed from sulfuric acid rain (SAR) to nitric acid rain (NAR) due to controls on SO2 emissions, but incr...

Dendrobium officinale is an important traditional Chinese medicinal plant and crop, which contains many kinds of medicinal components. The quality of medicinal plants is closely related to the ecological factors in a growing environment. The main components of D. officinale determined in this study were polysaccharides, total alkaloids and total fl...

Background and AimsThe protective effects of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) on salt-stressed crop plants had been well studied. However, the physiological mechanism of AMF in mitigating adverse impact caused by salinity stress in different tissues of woody plants is not clear. Gleditsia sinensis Lam. is a valuable tree species with various pham...

Background: Dendrobium moniliforme (Linnaeus) Swartz is a well-known plant used in traditional Chinese medicine due to bioactive constituents. Polysaccharides are the main medicinal ingredients, yet no studies have been published on polysaccharide biosynthesis in D. moniliforme. To comprehensively investigate the polysaccharide at the transcriptio...

A predicted impact of a warming climate is an upslope shift of montane plant species. These upslope shifts may be amplified by land-use changes or attenuated by forest recoveries at low elevations where historical disturbances were ceased allowing for plant regrowth. Consequently, species may shift downslope back to low elevations where they had be...

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) inoculation have been shown to enhance host plant growth and rhizosphere soil aggregates largely due to the combined effect of extraradical hyphae and glomalin-related soil proteins but their effects on rocky desertified soils remain unknown. Extensive karst area of southwest China has undergone rocky desertificat...

Dendrobium officinale is a kind of crop and precious herbal that is widely distributed in China. We applied transcriptomics to investigate the flavonoids and their biosynthesis-related genes from different tissues. Total flavonoid was determined in three different tissues. In this study, nine cDNA libraries were generated from Dendrobium officinale...

Dendrobium, an important medicinal plant, is a source of widely used herbal medicine to nourish the stomach and treat throat inflammation. The present study is aimed at distinguishing and evaluating three major Dendrobium species by comparing physiochemical characteristics and understanding differences between different growth years in the Ta-pieh...