Long-term nitrogen fertilization decreased the abundance of inorganic phosphate solubilizing bacteria in an alkaline soil

• Published in: Scientific reports 2017-02, Vol.7 (1), p.42284, Article 42284
• Main Authors: Zheng, Bang-Xiao, Hao, Xiu-Li, Ding, Kai, Zhou, Guo-Wei, Chen, Qing-Lin, Zhang, Jia-Bao, Zhu, Yong-Guan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 38/22; 38/77; 42/40; 631/326/2565/855; 631/45/47/4112; 704/47/4112; Abundance; Alkalies - chemistry; Alkaline soils; Bacteria; Bacteria - genetics; Bacteria - metabolism; Corn; Environmental science; Experiments; Fertilization; Fertilizers; Fertilizers - analysis; Genes, Bacterial; Humanities and Social Sciences; Hydrogen-Ion Concentration; Laboratories; Manures; Monte Carlo Method; multidisciplinary; Nitrogen; Nitrogen - analysis; pH effects; Phosphatase; Phosphates - analysis; Phosphorus; Phylogenetics; Phylogeny; Potassium; Relative abundance; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S - genetics; rRNA 16S; Science; Sequence Analysis, DNA; Soil - chemistry; Soil microorganisms; Soil sciences
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/srep42284

Inorganic phosphate solubilizing bacteria (iPSB) are essential to facilitate phosphorus (P) mobilization in alkaline soil, however, the phylogenetic structure of iPSB communities remains poorly characterized. Thus, we use a reference iPSB database to analyze the distribution of iPSB communities based on 16S rRNA gene illumina sequencing. Additionally, a noval pqqC primer was developed to quantify iPSB abundance. In our study, an alkaline soil with 27-year fertilization treatment was selected. The percentage of iPSB was 1.10~2.87% per sample, and the dominant iPSB genera were closely related to Arthrobacter, Bacillus, Brevibacterium and Streptomyces . Long-term P fertilization had no significant effect on the abundance of iPSB communities. Rather than P and potassium (K) additions, long-term nitrogen (N) fertilization decreased the iPSB abundance, which was validated by reduced relative abundance of pqqC gene ( pqqC /16S). The decreased iPSB abundance was strongly related to pH decline and total N increase, revealing that the long-term N additions may cause pH decline and subsequent P releases relatively decreasing the demands of the iPSB community. The methodology and understanding obtained here provides insights into the ecology of inorganic P solubilizers and how to manipulate for better P use efficiency.