Enhanced soil quality after forest conversion to vegetable cropland and tea plantations has contrasting effects on soil microbial structure and functions

CATENA ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 211 ◽  
pp. 106029
Author(s):  
Lichao Fan ◽  
Guodong Shao ◽  
Yinghua Pang ◽  
Hongcui Dai ◽  
Lan Zhang ◽  
...  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lichao Fan ◽  
Guodong Shao ◽  
Yinghua Pan ◽  
Hongcui Dai ◽  
Lan Zhang ◽  
...  

Land-use changes could potentially exert a strong influence on soil quality and soil microbial communities. Moreover, microbial taxa are also important drivers of soil ecological functions. However, the linkage between soil quality and soil microbial communities is in need of deeper understanding. In this study, we examined the effects of soil quality on microbial community structure and functions after forest conversion to vegetable cropland and tea plantations. Soil quality index was significantly increased after natural forest conversion to vegetable cropland and tea plantations. Soil bacterial beta diversity significantly correlated to soil quality, but the sensitivity of individual microbial groups varied in response to changes in soil quality. Higher soil quality promoted bacterial diversity in vegetable cropland but decreased it in tea plantations, which implied soil quality was a structural factor in bacterial community composition but had contrasting effects for croplands versus plantations. Agricultural management played a negative role in maintaining microbial interactions, as identified by the network analysis, and furthermore the analysis revealed key functions of the microbial communities. After land-use change, the abundance (e.g., level, intensity) of microbial N-cycling function increased in tea plantations but decreased in vegetable cropland. The abundance of C-cycling function featured an opposite trend. Higher level of N-fixation in tea plantations but the higher abundance of N-oxidation in vegetable cropland was demonstrated. Higher abundance of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria and ammonia-oxidizing archaea as identified by qPCR in vegetable cropland corroborated the FAPROTAX function prediction. Therefore, the key taxa of soil microbial communities and microbial functions were largely dependent on changes in soil quality and determined responses to specific agricultural management.


2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 1003-1014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elcio Liborio Balota ◽  
Ines Fumiko Ubukata Yada ◽  
Higo Furlan Amaral ◽  
Andre Shigueyoshi Nakatani ◽  
Mariangela Hungria ◽  
...  

Many forested areas have been converted to intensive agricultural use to satisfy food, fiber, and forage production for a growing world population. There is great interest in evaluating forest conversion to cultivated land because this conversion adversely affects several soil properties. We examined soil microbial, physical, and chemical properties in an Oxisol (Latossolo Vermelho distrófico) of southern Brazil 24 years after forest conversion to a perennial crop with coffee or annual grain crops (maize and soybeans) in conventional tillage or no-tillage. One goal was to determine which soil quality parameters seemed most sensitive to change. A second goal was to test the hypothesis that no-tillage optimized preservation of soil quality indicators in annual cropping systems on converted land. Land use significantly affected microbial biomass and its activity, C and N mineralization, and aggregate stability by depth. Cultivated sites had lower microbial biomass and mineralizable C and N than a forest used as control. The forest and no-tillage sites had higher microbial biomass and mineralizable C and N than the conventional tillage site, and the metabolic quotient was 65 and 43 % lower, respectively. Multivariate analysis of soil microbial properties showed a clear separation among treatments, displaying a gradient from conventional tillage to forest. Although the soil at the coffee site was less disturbed and had a high organic C content, the microbial activity was low, probably due to greater soil acidity and Al toxicity. Under annual cropping, microbial activity in no-tillage was double that of the conventional tillage management. The greater microbial activity in forest and no-tillage sites may be attributed, at least partially, to lower soil disturbance. Reducing soil disturbance is important for soil C sequestration and microbial activity, although control of soil pH and Al toxicity are also essential to maintain the soil microbial activity high.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sören Thiele-Bruhn ◽  
Michael Schloter ◽  
Berndt-Michael Wilke ◽  
Lee A. Beaudette ◽  
Fabrice Martin-Laurent ◽  
...  

Abstract. The activity of microorganisms in soil is important for a robust functioning soil and related ecosystem service. Hence, there is a necessity to identify the indigenous soil microbial community for its functional properties using soil microbiological methods in order to determine the natural properties, functioning and operating range of soil microbial communities, and to assess ecotoxicological effects due to anthropogenic activities. Numerous microbiological methods currently exist in the literature and new, more advanced methods continue to be developed; however, only a limited number of the methods are standardized. Consequently, there is a need to identify the most promising non-standardized methods for assessing soil quality and develop these into standards. In alignment with the "Ecosystem Service Approach", new methods should focus on soil microbial function, including nutrient cycling, pest control and plant growth promotion, carbon cycling and sequestration, greenhouse gas emission, and soil structure. The few existing, function-related standard methods available focus on the estimation of microbial biomass, basal respiration, enzyme activities related to nutrient cycling, and organic chemical biodegradation. This paper sets out to summarize and expand on recent discussions within the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), Soil Quality - Biological Characterization sub-committee (ISO TC 190/SC 4) where a need was identified to develop scientifically sound methods which would best fulfil the practical needs of future users for assessing soil quality. Of particular note was the current evolution of molecular methods in microbial ecology that uses quantitative real time PCR (qPCR) to produce a large number of new endpoints and is more sensitive as compared to "classical" methods. Quantitative PCR assesses the activity of microbial genes that code for enzymes that catalyse major transformation steps in nitrogen and phosphorus cycling, greenhouse gas emissions, chemical transformations including pesticide degradation, and plant growth promotion pathways. In the assessment of soil quality methods, it was found that fungal methods were significantly underrepresented. As such, techniques to analyse fungal enzyme activities are proposed. Additionally, methods for the determination of microbial growth rates and efficiencies, including the use of glomalin as a biochemical marker for soil aggregation, are discussed. Furthermore, field methods indicative of carbon turnover, including the litter bag test and a modification to the tea bag test, are presented. As a final note, it is suggested that endpoints should represent a potential function of soil microorganisms rather than actual activity levels, as the latter can largely be dependent on short-term variable soil properties such as pedoclimatic conditions, nutrient availability, and anthropogenic soil cultivation activities.


2017 ◽  
Vol 74 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Afnan Khalil Ahmad Suleiman ◽  
Victor Satler Pylro ◽  
Luiz Fernando Wurdig Roesch

Chemosphere ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 86 (8) ◽  
pp. 802-808 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Fajardo ◽  
L.T. Ortíz ◽  
M.L. Rodríguez-Membibre ◽  
M. Nande ◽  
M.C. Lobo ◽  
...  

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