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Contrasting response of two grassland soils to N addition and moisture levels: N2O emission and functional gene abundance

  • Soils, Sec 2 • Global Change, Environ Risk Assess, Sustainable Land Use • Research Article
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Abstract

Purpose

Nitrification and denitrification processes dominate nitrous oxide (N2O) emission in grassland ecosystems, but their relative contribution as well as the abiotic factors are still not well understood.

Materials and methods

Two grassland soils from Duolun in Inner Mongolia, China, and Canterbury in New Zealand were used to quantitatively compare N2O production and the abundance of bacterial and archaeal amoA, denitrifying nirK and nirS genes in response to N additions (0 and 100 μg NH4 +–N g−1 dry soil) and two soil moisture levels (40 and 80 % water holding capacity) using microcosms.

Results and discussion

Soil moisture rather than N availability significantly increased the nitrification rate in the Duolun soil but not in the Canterbury soil. Moreover, N addition promoted denitrification enzyme activities in the Canterbury soil but not in the Duolun soil. The abundance of bacterial and archaeal amoA genes significantly increased as soil moisture increased in the Duolun soil, whereas in the Canterbury soil, only the abundance of bacterial amoA gene increased. The increase in N2O flux induced by N addition was significantly greater in the Duolun soil than in the Canterbury soil, suggesting that nitrification may have a dominant role in N2O emission for the Duolun soil, while denitrification for the Canterbury soil.

Conclusions

Microbial processes controlling N2O emission differed in grassland soils, thus providing important baseline data in terms of global change.

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Acknowledgments

We appreciate the assistance for sampling by Dr. Wenming Bai from the Institute of Botany, CAS. This work was financially supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (2013CB956300) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41371265 and 41020114001). We also thank the English improvement by Dr. Phillip Chalk from the University of Melbourne.

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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

    Xi-En Long, Ju-Pei Shen, Jun-Tao Wang, Li-Mei Zhang & Ji-Zheng He

  2. Key Laboratory of Urban Environment and Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen, 361021, China

    Xi-En Long

  3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

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

  4. Faculty of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Lincoln University, Lincoln, Christchurch, 7647, New Zealand

    Hongjie Di

  5. Faculty of Veterinary and Agricultural Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Ji-Zheng He

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  1. Xi-En Long
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  2. Ju-Pei Shen
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Correspondence to Ju-Pei Shen or Ji-Zheng He.

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Long, XE., Shen, JP., Wang, JT. et al. Contrasting response of two grassland soils to N addition and moisture levels: N2O emission and functional gene abundance. J Soils Sediments 17, 384–392 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-016-1559-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-016-1559-2

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