Microbial communities of an arable soil treated for 8 years with organic and inorganic fertilizers

Abstract

The use of organic compost combined with inorganic fertilizer can enable balanced fertilization under intensive farming conditions, but little is known about how these fertilization practices affect the composition of microbial in arable soils. In this study, a field trial of a rice–wheat cropping system was established to examine the effects of 8 years of fertilization with inorganic fertilizers (IFs) and the organic manure–inorganic fertilizers (OMIFs) on composition of microbial communities. The fungal 18S and bacterial 16S rRNA gene fragments were amplified from each soil sample and sequenced. Significantly lower fungal richness and higher bacterial richness were observed for the OMIF treatment compared to the other treatments. No obvious changes in fungal diversity were observed among the treatments, with a decrease bacterial diversity detected in the IF treatment. Variations in relative abundance were observed in the fungal phyla Glomeromycota, Blastocladiomycota, and Schizoplasmodiida and in the bacterial phyla Acidobacteria, Gemmatimonadetes, and Cyanobacteria, most of which were significantly correlated with soil organic matter (OM) and/or nitrate N (NO3 −-N) contents. Additionally, the fungal abundance-based coverage estimator (ACE) showed a significant negative correlation with the soil NO3 −-N/OM content, while the correlation was positive for the bacterial ACE estimate. This study suggests that the fungal and bacterial communities respond differently to the long-term organic-inorganic fertilization, which may result from different effects of NO3 −-N/OM content of soil on the composition of fungal and bacterial communities.