Enhanced carbon acquisition and use efficiency alleviate microbial carbon relative to nitrogen limitation under soil acidification

Ecological Processes

Ronald F. Turco¹  Yani Meng²  Xue Feng²  Ruzhen Wang²  Jiangping Cai²  Heyong Liu²  Yong Jiang²  Tianpeng Li³  Zhirui Wang³ 

[1] Department of Agronomy, Purdue University, 47907, West Lafayette, IN, USA;Erguna Forest-Steppe Ecotone Ecosystem Research Station, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 110016, Shenyang, China;Erguna Forest-Steppe Ecotone Ecosystem Research Station, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 110016, Shenyang, China;University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100049, Beijing, China;

关键词: Soil acidification;    Stoichiometric imbalance;    Metal stress;    Ecoenzymatic stoichiometry;    Element-use efficiency;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s13717-021-00309-1

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundSoil microbial communities cope with an imbalanced supply of resources by adjusting their element acquisition and utilization strategies. Although soil pH has long been considered an essential driver of microbial growth and community composition, little is known about how soil acidification affects microbial acquisition and utilization of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N). To close the knowledge gap, we simulated soil acidification and created a pH gradient by adding eight levels of elemental sulfur (S) to the soil in a meadow steppe.ResultsWe found that S-induced soil acidification strongly enhanced the ratio of fungi to bacteria (F:B) and microbial biomass C to N (MBC:MBN) and subsequently decreased the C:N imbalance between microbial biomass and their resources. The linear decrease in the C:N imbalance with decreasing soil pH implied a conversion from N limitation to C limitation. To cope with enhanced C versus N limitation, soil microbial communities regulated the relative production of enzymes by increasing the ratio of β-glucosidase (BG, C-acquiring enzyme) to leucine aminopeptidase (LAP, N-acquiring enzyme), even though both enzymatic activities decreased with S addition. Structural equation modeling (SEM) suggested that higher C limitation and C:N-acquiring enzyme stimulated microbial carbon-use efficiency (CUE), which counteracted the negative effect of metal stress (i.e., aluminum and manganese) under soil acidification.ConclusionsOverall, these results highlight the importance of stoichiometric controls in microbial adaption to soil acidification, which may help predict soil microbial responses to future acid deposition.

【 授权许可】

CC BY