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Effects of 3,4-dimethylpyrazole phosphate (DMPP) on nitrification and the abundance and community composition of soil ammonia oxidizers in three land uses

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Abstract

The application of the nitrification inhibitor, 3,4-dimethylpyrazole-phosphate (DMPP), is considered as an effective strategy to mitigate agricultural nitrogen loss. However, the inhibitory effect of DMPP on nitrification is variable and the importance of the soil microbial community composition to the variability is poorly understood. In this study, nine soils were collected across three land uses to investigate the impact of DMPP on nitrification and associated dynamics of ammonia oxidizers in a 28-day microcosm incubation. The results showed that the efficacy of DMPP at inhibiting net nitrification rates varied highly from no effect to 63.6 % during the first week of incubation. The abundance of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB), rather than ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA), was significantly correlated with nitrate concentrations across three land uses and significantly inhibited by DMPP addition. DMPP had higher efficacy in neutral and alkaline wheat and vegetable soils, compared with pasture soils. Canonical correspondence analysis suggested that soil pH was the most influential factor explaining the community composition of AOB and AOA in the collected soils. However, neither ammonium nitrate nor DMPP addition had a significant effect on the community composition of AOB or AOA during the incubation indicated by non-metric multidimensional scaling ordination. Taken together, our findings indicated that DMPP slowed nitrification by inhibiting the growth of AOB, and DMPP application affected the abundance of AOB more than the ammonia oxidizer community composition.

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Acknowledgments

This work was financially supported by Australian Research Council (DE150100870, DP160101028). The authors thank Julian Hill, Harry Velisha, and John Lcay for the soil collections and also Dr. Junjian Li for the assistance with data analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Veterinary and Agricultural Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, 3010, Australia

    Xiuzhen Shi, Hangwei Hu, Jizheng He, Deli Chen & Helen Charlotte Suter

  2. State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100085, China

    Jizheng He

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  1. Xiuzhen Shi
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Correspondence to Xiuzhen Shi.

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Shi, X., Hu, H., He, J. et al. Effects of 3,4-dimethylpyrazole phosphate (DMPP) on nitrification and the abundance and community composition of soil ammonia oxidizers in three land uses. Biol Fertil Soils 52, 927–939 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00374-016-1131-7

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