Natural and artificial humic substances to manage minerals, ions, water, and soil microorganisms

Artificial humic substance is a new chemical tool, and effects, such as dissolving insoluble phosphorus minerals, recovering phosphorus, improving soil fertility and reducing typical pollutants toxicity can now be addressed, quantified, and optimized.

Intracellular Metabolomics Switching Alters Extracellular Acid Production and Insoluble Phosphate Solubilization Behavior in Penicillium oxalicum

This research aims to understand the precise intracellular metabolic processes of how microbes solubilize insoluble phosphorus (Insol-P) to increase bio-available P. Newly isolated Penicillium oxalicum PSF-4 exhibited outstanding tricalcium phosphate (TP) and iron phosphate (IP) solubilization performance—as manifested by microbial growth and the secretion of low-molecular-weight organic acids (LMWOAs). Untargeted metabolomics approach was employed to assess the metabolic alterations of 73 intracellular metabolites induced by TP and IP compared with soluble KH2PO4 in P. oxalicum. Based on the changes of intracellular metabolites, it was concluded that (i) the enhanced intracellular glyoxylate and carbohydrate metabolisms increased the extracellular LMWOAs production; (ii) the exposure of Insol-P poses potential effects to P. oxalicum in destructing essential cellular functions, affecting microbial growth, and disrupting amino acid, lipid, and nucleotide metabolisms; and (iii) the intracellular amino acid utilization played a significant role to stimulate microbial growth and the extracellular LMWOAs biosynthesis.

Water-soluble phosphorus contributes significantly to shaping the community structure of rhizospheric bacteria in rocky desertification areas

Microorganisms play important roles in soil improvement. Therefore, clarifying the contribution of environmental factors in shaping the microbial community structure is beneficial to improve soil fertility in karst rocky desertification areas. Here, the bacterial community structures of eight rhizospheric soil samples collected from perennial fruit plantations were analysed using an Illumina HiSeq2500 platform. The diversity and abundance of bacteria in rocky desertification areas were significantly lower than those in non-rocky desertification areas, while the bacterial community structure was not significantly different between root surface and non-root surface soils in the same rhizospheric soil samples. Proteobacteria predominated in rocky desertification areas, while Actinobacteria predominated in non-rocky desertification areas. Correlation analysis revealed that water-soluble phosphorus content (r2 = 0.8258), latitude (r2 = 0.7556), altitude (r2 = 0.7501), and the age of fruit trees (r2 = 0.7321) were positively correlated with the bacterial community structure, while longitude, pH, and total phosphorus content did not significantly influence the soil bacterial community structure. As water-soluble phosphorus content is derived from insoluble phosphorus minerals, supplementing phosphorus-solubilising bacteria to soils in rocky desertification areas is a feasible strategy for accelerating the dissolution of insoluble phosphorus minerals and improving agricultural production and environment ecology.

CapturePhos – A phosphorus-rich polymer as a homogeneous catalyst scavenger

Homogeneous catalysts are efficiently removed from solution by an insoluble phosphorus-rich polymer network.