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Immediate effects of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium amendments on the methanotrophic activity and abundance in a Chinese paddy soil under short-term incubation experiment

  • SOILS, SEC 5 • SOIL AND LANDSCAPE ECOLOGY • RESEARCH ARTICLE
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Abstract

Purpose

Methane-oxidizing bacteria (methanotrophs) biologically consume and consequently affect the concentration of atmospheric methane (CH4), the second most prominent greenhouse gas, and therefore play critical roles in the mitigation of global warming effect. Long-term fertilization often affects the methanotrophic community and CH4 oxidation in various soils. Here, the immediate effects of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K) amendments on the CH4 oxidation activity and methanotrophic community structure were evaluated.

Materials and methods

Paddy soil samples were collected from the Taoyuan Experimental Station of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in central Hunan Province of China. A laboratory-based incubation experiment was conducted to investigate the immediate effects of N, P, and K amendments on the methanotrophs in soil. The CH4 oxidation rates and methanotrophic activities were determined by measuring the dynamic changes of CH4 concentration in the incubation system. The methanotrophic abundance and community changes in all of the seven treatments with and without nutrients addition were studied using real-time PCR and denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis, respectively.

Results and discussion

All of the N, P, and K treatments significantly decreased the CH4 oxidation activities. Compared with the control, the P and K amendments significantly increased the methanotrophic population size, but the N treatments have no effect on the methanotrophic abundance. A negative correlation was found between methanotrophic activity and methanotrophic abundance. We suggested that methanotrophic activity may not be inferred through the pmoA gene copies, especially in the short-term simulation experiments. Investigation of the methanotrophic population size and diversity is not enough to evaluate the soil CH4 sink accurately.

Conclusions

We concluded that the additions of N, P, and K reduce the activity but enhance the abundance of methanotrophs in a Chinese paddy soil through a short-term incubation experiment. Additionally, we found that the CH4 oxidation activity could be completely inhibited by Cl− toxicity. Our results implied that caution should be exercised in the types and amounts of fertilizers, especially KCl in agricultural systems to control the instantaneous increase in CH4 emission from the field.

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Acknowledgments

We thank two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on previous versions of the manuscript. This study was supported by grants from the Ministry of Sciences and Technology of China (no. 2012CB956300), the Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 41001149), and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (no. KZCX2-YW-JC401).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Mycology, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, People’s Republic of China

    Yong Zheng

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

    Yong Zheng, Li-Mei Zhang & Ji-Zheng He

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  1. Yong Zheng
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  2. Li-Mei Zhang
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  3. Ji-Zheng He
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Correspondence to Ji-Zheng He.

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Responsible editor: Yanfen Wang

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Zheng, Y., Zhang, LM. & He, JZ. Immediate effects of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium amendments on the methanotrophic activity and abundance in a Chinese paddy soil under short-term incubation experiment. J Soils Sediments 13, 189–196 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-012-0601-2

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