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Responses of microbial function, biomass and heterotrophic respiration, and organic carbon in fir plantation soil to successive nitrogen and phosphorus fertilization

  • Environmental Biotechnology
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Abstract

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from forest ecosystems originate largely from soil respiration, and microbial heterotrophic respiration plays a critical role in determining organic carbon (C) stock. This study investigated the impacts of successive nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) fertilization after 9 years on soil organic C stock; CO2 emission; and microbial biomass, community, and function in a Chinese fir plantation. The annual fertilization rates were (1) CK, control without N or P fertilization; (2) N50, 50 kg N ha−1; (3) N100, 100 kg N ha−1; (4) P50, 50 kg P ha−1; (5) N50P50, 50 kg N ha−1 + 50 kg P ha−1; and (6) N100P50, 100 kg N ha−1 + 50 kg P ha−1. The N100P50 treatment had the highest cumulative soil CO2 emissions, but the CK treatment had the lowest cumulative soil CO2 emissions among all treatments. The declines of soil organic C (SOC) after successive 9-year fertilization were in the order of 100 kg N ha−1 year−1 > 50 kg N ha−1 year−1 > CK. Compared to the CK treatment, successive N fertilization significantly changed soil microbial communities at different application rates and increased the relative gene abundances of glycoside hydrolases, glycosyl transferases, carbohydrate-binding modules, and polysaccharide lyases at 100 kg N ha−1 year−1. Relative to P fertilization alone (50 kg P ha−1 year−1), combined N and P fertilization significantly altered the soil microbial community structure and favored more active soil microbial metabolism. Microbial community and metabolism changes caused by N fertilization could have enhanced CO2 emission from heterotrophic respiration and eventually led to the decrease in organic C stock in the forest plantation soil.

Key points

• N fertilization, alone or with P, favored more active microbial metabolism genes.

• 100 kg N ha−1 fertilization significantly changed microbial community and function.

• N fertilization led to a “domino effect” on the decrease of soil C stock.

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Data availability

The raw sequencing data of the 18 soil samples have been submitted to the NCBI, and the sequence read archive number was PRJNA647507.

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Funding

We sincerely thank the supports of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31560204 and 41907085, 42177026) and Hunan Province Science Fund for Excellent Young Scholars (2021JJ20030). Manyun Zhang was also funded by the Science Foundation for Young Scholars of Hunan Agricultural University (540742000199). The kind help from Jinming Zhao with the experimental site map was appreciated.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Rural Ecosystem Health in Dongting Lake Area, College of Resources and Environment, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha, 410128, China

    Manyun Zhang

  2. Centre for Planetary Health and Food Security, School of Environment and Science, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, 4111, Australia

    Manyun Zhang, Yun Niu, Weijin Wang, Shahla Hosseini Bai, Li Tang & Zhihong Xu

  3. Jiangxi Key Laboratory of Silviculture, College of Forestry, Jiangxi Agricultural University, Nanchang, 330045, China

    Yun Niu, Handong Luo, Fusheng Chen, Zhihong Xu & Xiaomin Guo

  4. Key Laboratory of Forest Resources Conservation and Utilization in the Southwest Mountains of China, Ministry of Education, Southwest Forestry University, Kunming, 650224, China

    Yun Niu

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  1. Manyun Zhang
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Contributions

MYZ, FSC, and XMG conceived and designed research. MYZ, YN, HDL, and XMG conducted experiments and contributed to data analysis. MYZ, WJW, SHB, ZHX, and XMG wrote and revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Zhihong Xu or Xiaomin Guo.

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Zhang, M., Niu, Y., Wang, W. et al. Responses of microbial function, biomass and heterotrophic respiration, and organic carbon in fir plantation soil to successive nitrogen and phosphorus fertilization. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 105, 8907–8920 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-021-11663-7

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