Microbial ecology associated to soil-plant interactions: exemplifying recent progress in East Asia

Abstract

s for potential papers were invited from the symposium presentations and posters, from which 19 full papers were invited. The papers subsequently accepted for publication include a review and three research articles. The review paper focused on the application of stable isotope labelling of phospholipid fatty acids (SIP-PLFA) to trace C fluxes in soil-plant ecosystems (Yao et al. 2015). It concluded that the SIP-PLFA method provides an excellent tool to study the incorporation of rhizodeposited C into soil microbial biomass and understand the plant-microbe-soil interactions in the rhizosphere. The three research articles used labeling techniques to assess the flow of C photosynthetates in paddy soils and focused on molecular biological techniques to determine the microbial community Plant Soil (2015) 392:1–2 DOI 10.1007/s11104-015-2521-6 Responsible Editor: Paul Bodelier. H. Yao (*) :Y. Zhu Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen 361021, China e-mail: hyyao@iue.ac.cn Y. Zhu e-mail: ygzhu@iue.ac.cn H. Yao :Y. Zhu Ningbo Urban Environment Observation and Research Station, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo 315830, China changes in response to biological invasion, elevated CO2 and temperature. Ge et al. (2015) demonstrated that nitrogen fertilization can promote the incorporation of photosynthesis derived C into soil organic C pools. Overall, the amount of CO2 that was converted into SOC was proportional to the soil N concentration, indicating that N fertilization promoted rhizodeposition. However, the proportion of C in the microbial biomass C was highest at the lower fertilization rate. Higher microbial activity was found in areas invaded by Phragmites australis compared to areas dominated by native species, and plant diversity was found to be the most important regulator of microbial community structure and diversity in these areas (Song et al. 2015). Ren et al. (2015) found distinct response patterns of soil and leaf-associated bacterial communities to elevated CO2 and temperature. In this study it was observed that the dominance of Enterobacteriaceae in leaf tissue may be of great importance in rice growth. These papers highlight the current focus of understanding the interactions between crop plants and microbial communities with respect to nutrient cycling. Future research is likely to increasingly focus on problems affecting food security. Over fertilization, pesticide and industrial pollution are major concerns in many parts of East Asia, in addition to understanding the long-term consequences of climate change. We would like to thank all the authors who attended the symposium, and contributed abstracts and full manuscripts for their active responses, encouragement and cooperation. Thanks are also due to all the reviewers and to Professor Hans Lambers, the Editor-in-chief and his editorial team at Plant and Soil for handling these papers.