Enhancement of Copper Availability and Microbial Community Changes in Rice Rhizospheres Affected by Sulfur

Ji-Yan Shi,Ying-Xu Chen,Xin-Cai Chen,Xiao-Feng Yuan,Chao-Feng Shen,Hui-Rong Lin

doi:10.3390/molecules16021409

Ji-Yan Shi, Ying-Xu Chen + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules16021409

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Abstract

The role of sulfur on the availability of Cu and the bacterial community in rice rhizospheres was investigated by pot experiments. With sulfur addition, pH in rhizosphere soil decreased and Mg(NO3)2 extractable Cu increased significantly. The bacterial community composition also changed with sulfur addition. Some specific clones having high similarity to Thiobacillus, which indicated that sulfur oxidation in the rice rhizosphere could increase the availability of Cu. These results suggested that sulfur source which could provide substrate to sulfur oxidizing bacteria and enhance the availability of Cu was not a suitable sulfur fertilizer for Cu polluted soil.

Highlights

Copper (Cu) is an essential nutrient element for plants, but excessive uptake of Cu may be a great risk to plants and result in serious threats to human health through the food chain
Recent studies have showed that oxidation and reduction process of sulfur in soil could affect the transformations of heavy metals [7]
Knowledge of how sulfur affects the availability of heavy metals in paddy soil is necessary as it is a typical sulfur cycle environment

Summary

Introduction

Copper (Cu) is an essential nutrient element for plants, but excessive uptake of Cu may be a great risk to plants and result in serious threats to human health through the food chain. Great attention has been paid to its behavior in soil-plant system. Many studies have confirmed that the toxicity of heavy metals on plants is usually dependent on their availability [1,2,3]. It is important to study the availability of Cu in paddy soil since excessive Cu in paddy soil may be a threat to human health. Sulfur has been proven to play an important role on the transformation of heavy metals [6,7,8], so it can be hypothesized that sulfur might affect the availability of Cu in paddy soil due to its relatively higher sulfur transformation rates. It is necessary to study the role of sulfur on the behavior of Cu in paddy soils

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