Ding, Bo, Cai, Xinyan, Wang, Yi, Li, Huijie, Zhao, Xizhou, Xiao, Mei, Li, Jianfeng, Yu, Qianjun, and Zhao, Ying
• Secondary vegetation succession promotes preferential flow. • Secondary vegetation succession changes soil texture and structure. • Soil structure independently explains 26% variation of preferential flow pattern. • Reforestation intensifies preferential flow by improving soil structure. Preferential flow benefits water storage in deep soils that contribute to hydrological sustainability under different vegetations in the Karst regions, however, how vegetation specializes preferential flow pattern by changing soil architecture remains unclear. The study investigated the variations of soil architecture and preferential flow patterns in the agricultural field, abandoned field, and young and mature woodlands that representing four vegetation succession stages during the implementation of returning cultivated land into forest in the Karst region, to explored how soil texture and structure interact to specialize preferential flow patterns under the vegetation succession, using the dye-tracing technique, the principal component analysis (PCA), and the variation partitioning analysis (VPA). The dyed soil profiles illustrated heavy preferential flow under the four vegetations. The maximum infiltration depth (D max), actual infiltration depth (D actual), total dye coverage (C total), and length index (LI) significantly increased following the sequence of vegetation succession stages (P < 0.05), and the preferential pathway contribution (D pr) was the significantly lowest under the agricultural field and young woodland and the highest under the mature woodland (P < 0.05), which indicated of intensified preferential flow with ongoing vegetation succession. The preferential flow pattern index (PFP) was constructed by the D max , D actual , C total , D pr , and LI after the PCA, which gradually increased (from −0.82 ± 0.69 to 1.37±0.80) during the succession, suggesting that preferential flow percolated deeper, more preferential flow was received, and preferential flow contribution increased during the succession. Soil texture (sand content, silt content, and geometric mean soil particle size) and structure (bulk density, air-filled porosity, total porosity, air-filled porosity, and ratio of air-filled and capillary porosity to total porosity) significantly correlated to the PFP (P < 0.05). The VPA revealed that soil texture and structure independently explained 9 % and 26 % variation of the PFP. This situation means although reforestation intensified preferential flow by improving soil structure, adverse impacts of improper soil texture management of could offset the intensification efficiency by reforestation. Therefore, the results benefit to meet ecological and hydrological sustainability challenges rooted by preferential flow in the Karst regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]