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Impacts of Organic and Inorganic Fertilizers on Nitrification in a Cold Climate Soil are Linked to the Bacterial Ammonia Oxidizer Community

  • Soil Microbiology
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Abstract

The microbiology underpinning soil nitrogen cycling in northeast China remains poorly understood. These agricultural systems are typified by widely contrasting temperature, ranging from −40 to 38°C. In a long-term site in this region, the impacts of mineral and organic fertilizer amendments on potential nitrification rate (PNR) were determined. PNR was found to be suppressed by long-term mineral fertilizer treatment but enhanced by manure treatment. The abundance and structure of ammonia-oxidizing bacterial (AOB) and archaeal (AOA) communities were assessed using quantitative polymerase chain reaction and denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis techniques. The abundance of AOA was reduced by all fertilizer treatments, while the opposite response was measured for AOB, leading to a six- to 60-fold reduction in AOA/AOB ratio. The community structure of AOA exhibited little variation across fertilization treatments, whereas the structure of the AOB community was highly responsive. PNR was correlated with community structure of AOB rather than that of AOA. Variation in the community structure of AOB was linked to soil pH, total carbon, and nitrogen contents induced by different long-term fertilization regimes. The results suggest that manure amendment establishes conditions which select for an AOB community type which recovers mineral fertilizer-suppressed soil nitrification.

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Acknowledgments

Two anonymous reviewers are greatly acknowledged for their invaluable comments and suggestions on this paper. We also want to thank Steven A. Wakelin in AgResearch, New Zealand for his kind comments on this paper. This work is supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (2005CB121105), National Key Technology R&D Program (2006BAD05B05) and the Funding from Institute of Agricultural Sciences and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (2009–18).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ministry of Agriculture Key Laboratory of Crop Nutrition and Fertilization, Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Zhongguancun Nandajie No.12, Beijing, 100081, China

    Fenliang Fan, Qianbao Yang, Zhaojun Li & Yongchao Liang

  2. Institute of Soil and Fertilizer, Heilongjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Harbin, 150086, China

    Dan Wei

  3. Heihe institute, Heilongjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Heihe, 164300, China

    Xi’an Cui

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  1. Fenliang Fan
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Correspondence to Yongchao Liang.

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Fig. S1

Community structure of bacterial (a AOB) and archaeal (b AOA) ammonia oxidizers from plots receiving no fertilizer (N0P0M0), horse manure (N0P0M1), nitrogen and phosphorus mineral fertilizers (N1P1M0), and mineral fertilizer plus manure (N1P1M1). The community structures were determined in triplicate by DGGE analysis of ammonia monooxygenase subunit A (amoA) genes of archaea and bacteria. Each lane represents a profile derived from an individual soil sample (DOC 879 kb)

Fig. S2

Phylogenetic analysis of partial ammonia monooxygenase subunit A (amoA) gene sequences of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (a) and archaea (b). The phylogenetic tree was constructed based on p distance analysis using the neighbor-joining algorithm of MEGA 4.0. Bootstrap analysis was performed with 500 replicates. The scale bar represents substitutions per site. OTUs were defined as sharing 97% sequence similarity and are highlighted in filled squares. Classifications of AOB were defined mainly according to [25, 4]. (DOC 60 kb)

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Fan, F., Yang, Q., Li, Z. et al. Impacts of Organic and Inorganic Fertilizers on Nitrification in a Cold Climate Soil are Linked to the Bacterial Ammonia Oxidizer Community. Microb Ecol 62, 982–990 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-011-9897-5

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