scholarly journals Resilience and Assemblage of Soil Microbiome in Response to Chemical Contamination Combined with Plant Growth

2019 ◽  
Vol 85 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuo Jiao ◽  
Weimin Chen ◽  
Gehong Wei

ABSTRACT A lack of knowledge of the microbial responses to environmental change at the species and functional levels hinders our ability to understand the intrinsic mechanisms underlying the maintenance of microbial ecosystems. Here, we present results from temporal microcosms that introduced inorganic and organic contaminants into agro-soils for 90 days, with three common legume plants. Temporal dynamics and assemblage of soil microbial communities and functions in response to contamination under the influence of growth of different plants were explored via sequencing of the 16S rRNA amplicon and by shotgun metagenomics. Soil microbial alpha diversity and structure at the taxonomic and functional levels exhibited resilience patterns. Functional profiles showed greater resilience than did taxonomic ones. Different legume plants imposed stronger selection on taxonomic profiles than on functional ones. Network and random forest analyses revealed that the functional potential of soil microbial communities was fostered by various taxonomic groups. Betaproteobacteria were important predictors of key functional traits such as amino acid metabolism, nucleic acid metabolism, and hydrocarbon degradation. Our study reveals the strong resilience of the soil microbiome to chemical contamination and sensitive responses of taxonomic rather than functional profiles to selection processes induced by different legume plants. This is pivotal to develop approaches and policies for the protection of soil microbial diversity and functions in agro-ecosystems with different response strategies from global environmental drivers, such as soil contamination and plant invasion. IMPORTANCE Exploring the microbial responses to environmental disturbances is a central issue in microbial ecology. Understanding the dynamic responses of soil microbial communities to chemical contamination and the microbe-soil-plant interactions is essential for forecasting the long-term changes in soil ecosystems. Nevertheless, few studies have applied multi-omics approaches to assess the microbial responses to soil contamination and the microbe-soil-plant interactions at the taxonomic and functional levels simultaneously. Our study reveals clear succession and resilience patterns of soil microbial diversity and structure in response to chemical contamination. Different legume plants exerted stronger selection processes on taxonomic than on functional profiles in contaminated soils, which could benefit plant growth and fitness as well as foster the potential abilities of hydrocarbon degradation and metal tolerance. These results provide new insight into the resilience and assemblage of soil microbiome in response to environmental disturbances in agro-ecosystems at the species and functional levels.

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 43
Author(s):  
Lily Ishak ◽  
Philip Hugh Brown

The role of microbial communities in maintaining soil health is mostly influenced by chemical condition of soil. Microbial communities vary in response to soil chemical factors. The contradictive results from previous findings emphasise that it is difficult to define a pattern of the influence of soil chemical factors on soil microbial diversity and activity. The aim of the study was to assess soil microbial responses to soil chemical factors in agricultural soils. Composite soil (Dermosol order) samples taken from 16 commercial crop sites in Bundaberg, Queensland, Australia, were chemically and biologically analysed. It was found that bacterial and fungal activity and diversity were significantly affected by soil EC, SOM and NO3-N content, but were not influenced by soil pH, CEC, and Ca:Mg ratio. The diversity of bacterial and fungal communities displayed a positive linear relationship with soil EC, whereas the activity and diversity of these two microbial groups and SOM displayed a significant quadratic relationship. The finding suggested that microbial community was predominantly influenced by SOM content.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yan Wang ◽  
Yujie Jin ◽  
Ping Han ◽  
Jianjun Hao ◽  
Hongyu Pan ◽  
...  

Soil treatment with disinfectants has been used for controlling soilborne phytopathogens. Besides suppressing specific pathogens, how these disinfectants impact soil health, especially soil microbial communities, is yet to be systemically determined. The objectives of this study were to examine the effects of three representative disinfectants, including the dazomet fumigant, fenaminosulf fungicide, and kasugamycin antibiotic on chemical properties, enzymatic activities, and microbial communities in soil for cucumber cultivation. Results showed that 14 days after soil treatment with these chemicals, residual content of dazomet and kasugamycin quickly declined in soil and were undetectable, while fenaminosulf residues were found at 0.48 ± 0.01 mg/kg. Total nitrogen and total carbon increased in soil after dazomet treatment. Urease and sucrase activities were significantly restrained after disinfectant application. The disinfectants did not significantly change the taxon of predominant bacteria and fungi but altered the relative abundance and diversity of soil microbiome, as well as microbial interspecific relationships. Moreover, cucumber cultivation enhanced the overall soil microbial diversity and enzymatic activities, which diminished the difference of soil microbiome among four treatments. The difference in soil microbial diversity among the four treatments became smaller after planting cucumber. Thus, soil microbial communities were affected by soil disinfectants and gradually recovered by cucumber application.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Calvin Cornell ◽  
Vasilis Kokkoris ◽  
Andrew Richards ◽  
Christina Horst ◽  
Daniel Rosa ◽  
...  

There is a global industry built upon the production of “bioinoculants,” which include both bacteria and fungi. The recent increase in bioinoculant uptake by land users coincides with a drive for more sustainable land use practices. But are bioinoculants sustainable? These microbes are believed to improve plant performance, but knowledge of their effect on resident microbial communities is scant. Without a clear understanding of how they affect soil microbial communities (SMC), their utility is unclear. To assess how different inoculation practices may affect bioinoculant effects on SMC, we surveyed the existing literature. Our results show that bioinoculants significantly affect soil microbial diversity and that these effects are mediated by inoculant type, diversity, and disturbance regime. Further, these changes to soil microbes affect plant outcomes. Knowledge that these products may influence crop performance indirectly through changes to soil microbial diversity attests to the importance of considering the soil microbiome when assessing both bioinoculant efficacy and threats to soil ecosystems.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 1400
Author(s):  
Marta Bertola ◽  
Andrea Ferrarini ◽  
Giovanna Visioli

Soil is one of the key elements for supporting life on Earth. It delivers multiple ecosystem services, which are provided by soil processes and functions performed by soil biodiversity. In particular, soil microbiome is one of the fundamental components in the sustainment of plant biomass production and plant health. Both targeted and untargeted management of soil microbial communities appear to be promising in the sustainable improvement of food crop yield, its nutritional quality and safety. –Omics approaches, which allow the assessment of microbial phylogenetic diversity and functional information, have increasingly been used in recent years to study changes in soil microbial diversity caused by agronomic practices and environmental factors. The application of these high-throughput technologies to the study of soil microbial diversity, plant health and the quality of derived raw materials will help strengthen the link between soil well-being, food quality, food safety and human health.


Microbiome ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chengyuan Tao ◽  
Rong Li ◽  
Wu Xiong ◽  
Zongzhuan Shen ◽  
Shanshan Liu ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Plant diseases caused by fungal pathogen result in a substantial economic impact on the global food and fruit industry. Application of organic fertilizers supplemented with biocontrol microorganisms (i.e. bioorganic fertilizers) has been shown to improve resistance against plant pathogens at least in part due to impacts on the structure and function of the resident soil microbiome. However, it remains unclear whether such improvements are driven by the specific action of microbial inoculants, microbial populations naturally resident to the organic fertilizer or the physical-chemical properties of the compost substrate. The aim of this study was to seek the ecological mechanisms involved in the disease suppressive activity of bio-organic fertilizers. Results To disentangle the mechanism of bio-organic fertilizer action, we conducted an experiment tracking Fusarium wilt disease of banana and changes in soil microbial communities over three growth seasons in response to the following four treatments: bio-organic fertilizer (containing Bacillus amyloliquefaciens W19), organic fertilizer, sterilized organic fertilizer and sterilized organic fertilizer supplemented with B. amyloliquefaciens W19. We found that sterilized bioorganic fertilizer to which Bacillus was re-inoculated provided a similar degree of disease suppression as the non-sterilized bioorganic fertilizer across cropping seasons. We further observed that disease suppression in these treatments is linked to impacts on the resident soil microbial communities, specifically by leading to increases in specific Pseudomonas spp.. Observed correlations between Bacillus amendment and indigenous Pseudomonas spp. that might underlie pathogen suppression were further studied in laboratory and pot experiments. These studies revealed that specific bacterial taxa synergistically increase biofilm formation and likely acted as a plant-beneficial consortium against the pathogen. Conclusion Together we demonstrate that the action of bioorganic fertilizer is a product of the biocontrol inoculum within the organic amendment and its impact on the resident soil microbiome. This knowledge should help in the design of more efficient biofertilizers designed to promote soil function.


mSystems ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Arunima Bhattacharjee ◽  
Dusan Velickovic ◽  
Thomas W. Wietsma ◽  
Sheryl L. Bell ◽  
Janet K. Jansson ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Understanding the basic biology that underpins soil microbiome interactions is required to predict the metaphenomic response to environmental shifts. A significant knowledge gap remains in how such changes affect microbial community dynamics and their metabolic landscape at microbially relevant spatial scales. Using a custom-built SoilBox system, here we demonstrated changes in microbial community growth and composition in different soil environments (14%, 24%, and 34% soil moisture), contingent upon access to reservoirs of nutrient sources. The SoilBox emulates the probing depth of a common soil core and enables determination of both the spatial organization of the microbial communities and their metabolites, as shown by confocal microscopy in combination with mass spectrometry imaging (MSI). Using chitin as a nutrient source, we used the SoilBox system to observe increased adhesion of microbial biomass on chitin islands resulting in degradation of chitin into N-acetylglucosamine (NAG) and chitobiose. With matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI)-MSI, we also observed several phospholipid families that are functional biomarkers for microbial growth on the chitin islands. Fungal hyphal networks bridging different chitin islands over distances of 27 mm were observed only in the 14% soil moisture regime, indicating that such bridges may act as nutrient highways under drought conditions. In total, these results illustrate a system that can provide unprecedented spatial information about interactions within soil microbial communities as a function of changing environments. We anticipate that this platform will be invaluable in spatially probing specific intra- and interkingdom functional relationships of microbiomes within soil. IMPORTANCE Microbial communities are key components of the soil ecosystem. Recent advances in metagenomics and other omics capabilities have expanded our ability to characterize the composition and function of the soil microbiome. However, characterizing the spatial metabolic and morphological diversity of microbial communities remains a challenge due to the dynamic and complex nature of soil microenvironments. The SoilBox system, demonstrated in this work, simulates an ∼12-cm soil depth, similar to a typical soil core, and provides a platform that facilitates imaging the molecular and topographical landscape of soil microbial communities as a function of environmental gradients. Moreover, the nondestructive harvesting of soil microbial communities for the imaging experiments can enable simultaneous multiomics analysis throughout the depth of the SoilBox. Our results show that by correlating molecular and optical imaging data obtained using the SoilBox platform, deeper insights into the nature of specific soil microbial interactions can be achieved.


Forests ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 680 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xuan Yu ◽  
Lin Yang ◽  
Shixuan Fei ◽  
Zitong Ma ◽  
Ruqian Hao ◽  
...  

Gaps by thinning can have different microclimatic environments compared to surrounding areas, depending on the size of the gap. In addition, gaps can play important roles in biological dynamics, nutrient cycling, and seedling regeneration. The impacts of gap size on soil microbial communities and enzyme activities in different soil layers in Chinese pine plantations are not well understood. Here, we created gaps of 45 m2 (small, G1), 100 m2 (medium, G2), and 190 m2 (large, G3) by thinning unhealthy trees in an aged (i.e., 50 years old) monoculture Chinese pine plantation in 2010. Soil samples were collected in 2015. The total, bacterial, Gram-positive (G+), and Gram-negative (G−) phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) profiles were highest in medium gaps in both the organic and mineral layers. These indicesdecreased sharply as gap size increased to 190 m2, and each of the detected enzyme activities demonstrated the same trend. Under all the gap size managements, abundances of microbial PLFAs and enzyme activities in the organic layers were higher than in the mineral layers. The soil layer was found to have a stronger influence on soil microbial communities than gap size. Redundancy analysis (RDA) based on the three systems with different gap sizes showed that undergrowth coverage, diversity, soil total nitrogen (TN), total organic carbon (TOC), and available phosphorus (AT) significantly affected soil microbial communities. Our findings highlighted that the effect of gap size on soil microenvironment is valuable information for assessing soil fertility. Medium gaps (i.e., 100 m2) have higher microbial PLFAs, enzyme activity, and soil nutrient availability. These medium gaps are considered favorable for soil microbial communities and fertility studied in a Chinese pine plantation managed on the Loess Plateau.


Science ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 325 (5940) ◽  
pp. 573-574 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jim Harris

Microorganisms have critical roles in the functioning of soil in nutrient cycling, structural formation, and plant interactions, both positive and negative. These roles are important in reestablishing function and biodiversity in ecosystem restoration. Measurement of the community indicates the status of the system in relation to restoration targets and the effectiveness of management interventions, and manipulation of the community shows promise in the enhancement of the rate of recovery of degraded systems.


Author(s):  
Lanying Ma ◽  
Fernando Igne Rocha ◽  
Jaejin Lee ◽  
Jinlyung Choi ◽  
Mauricio Tejera ◽  
...  

Yield of the perennial grass Miscanthus × giganteus has shown an inconsistent and unpredictable response to nitrogen (N) fertilizer, yet fertilization underpins the crop’s environmental and economic sustainability. The interactions among soil microbial communities, N availability, and M. × giganteus and management may explain changes in plant productivity. In this study, soil samples from different stand ages of M. × giganteus in a replicated chronosequence field trial were used to investigate the effects of stand age and N fertilizer rates on microbial community structure. We hypothesized that there is a definable M. × giganteus soil microbiome and that this community varies significantly with stand age and fertilization. Our results showed that the main phyla in soil microbial communities, regardless of plant age, are similar but microbial community structures are significantly different. The variation in observed microbial communities generally decreases in older stand ages. The amount of N fertilizer applied also affected the microbial community structure associated with different aged M. × giganteus. Specifically, the relative abundance of Proteobacteria (Alphaproteobacteria and Gammaproteobacteria) and Acidobacteria (Subgroup Gp1) increased shortly after fertilization and were more associated with younger M. × giganteus. Further, our results show a significant relationship between bacterial alpha diversity and fertilization rates and that this response is also impacted by stand age. Overall, our results emphasize linkages between microbial community structure, plant age, and fertilization in M. × giganteus.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Learn-Han Lee ◽  
Vengadesh Letchumanan ◽  
Nurul-Syakima Ab Mutalib ◽  
Yoke Kqueen Cheah

The diversity of soil microbial communities at Barrientos Island with  differents soil characteristics were evaluated using PCR-based method random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and community level physiological profiles (CLPP) of Biolog Ecoplate. The soils were selected from 17 different locations around Barrientos Island inhabited by different breeders. Shannon-Weaver index and multivariate analysis were performed to characterize variations of soil microbial communities. Both RAPD and CLPP methods exhibited that most soils with different type of rookery and characteristics could possibly affect the DNA sequence diversity and soil microbial diversity. The abandoned type of rookery had the highest Shannon-Weaver index as exhibited by soil sample 445 (3.4 for RAPD) and 450 (3.09 for CLPP). Higher coefficients of DNA sequence similarity were found in soil samples colonized by similar breeders, like soil 442 and 446 (both were active Chinstrap rookery) shared highest similarity in DNA sequences (73.53). The cluster analysis of RAPD profiles by UPGMA and principle component analysis (PCA) of Biolog Ecoplate exhibited similar influence of type of rookery and soil condition towards soil microbial community diversity. The results may suggest that the change in microbial community DNA composition is accompanied with the change in microbial functional properties.


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