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Contrasting response of nitrification capacity in three agricultural soils to N addition during short-term incubation

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

Purpose

Human disturbance is a major culprit driving imbalances in the biological transformation of nitrogen from the nonreactive to the reactive pool and is therefore one of the greatest concerns for nitrogen (N) cycling. The objective of this study was to compare potential nitrification rates and the abundance of ammonia oxidizers responsible for nitrification, with the amendment of external N in different agricultural soils.

Materials and methods

Three typical Chinese agricultural soils, QiYang (QY) acid soil, ShenYang (SY) neutral soil, and FengQiu (FQ) alkaline soil, were amended with 0, 20, 150, and 300 μg NH4 +-N g−1 soil and incubated for 40 days. The abundance of ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and archaea (AOA) at the end of incubation in the soil microcosms was determined using the real-time PCR.

Results and discussion

There was a significant decrease in ammonium concentration in the QY soil from the highest to the lowest N-loading treatments, while no significant difference in ammonium concentrations was detected among the different N-loading treatments for the SY and FQ soils. A significantly higher potential nitrification rate (PNR) was observed in the FQ soil while lowest PNR was found in the QY soil. Quantitative PCR analysis of AOB amoA genes demonstrated that AOB abundance was significantly higher in the high N-loading treatments than in the control for the QY soil only, while no significant difference among treatments in the SY and FQ soils. A significant positive correlation between PNR and AOB amoA abundance, however, was found for the SY and FQ soils, but not for the QY soil. Little difference in AOA amoA abundance between different N-loading treatments was observed for all the soils.

Conclusions

This study suggested that ammonia oxidation capacity in the FQ and SY soils was higher than those in the QY soil with the addition of ammonium fertilizer for a short-term. These findings indicated that understanding the differential responses of biological nitrification to varying input levels of ammonium fertilizer is important for maximizing N use efficiency and thereby improving agricultural fertilization management.

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Acknowledgments

We appreciate the helpful suggestions and English improvements from Dr. Jessica L. Ray, Uni Research AS, Norway. The assistances in sampling by staff at the Qiyang (QY), Fengqiu (FQ) and Shenyang (SY) experiment stations are sincerely appreciated. This work was financially support by the Natural Science Foundation of China (41371265) and the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB15020200).

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Authors and Affiliations

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

    Ju-Pei Shen, Li-Mei Zhang & Ji-Zheng He

  2. Melbourne School of Land and Environment, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, 3010, VIC, Australia

    Ji-Zheng He

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  1. Ju-Pei Shen
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  2. Li-Mei Zhang
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Correspondence to Ji-Zheng He.

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Responsible editor: Ian Anderson

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Shen, JP., Zhang, LM. & He, JZ. Contrasting response of nitrification capacity in three agricultural soils to N addition during short-term incubation. J Soils Sediments 14, 1861–1868 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-014-0968-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-014-0968-3

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