Abstract

The dynamic patterns of the belowground microbial communities and their corresponding metabolic functions, when exposed to various environmental disturbances, are important for the understanding and development of sustainable agricultural systems. In this study, a two-year field experiment with soils subjected to: chemical fertilization (F), mushroom residues (MR), combined application of chemical fertilizers and mushroom residues (MRF), and no-fertilization (CK) was conducted to evaluate the effect of fertilization on the soil bacterial taxonomic and functional compositions as well as on the rice yield. The highest rice yield was obtained under MRF. Soil microbial properties (microbial biomass carbon (MBC), microbial biomass nitrogen (MBN), urease, invertase, acid phosphatase, and soil dehydrogenase activities) reflected the rice yield better than soil chemical characteristics (soil organic matter (SOM), total N (TN), total K (TK), available P (AP), available K (AK), and pH). Although the dominant bacterial phyla were not significantly different among fertilizations, 10 bacterial indicator taxa that mainly belonged to Actinobacteria (Nocardioides, Marmoricola, Tetrasphaera, and unclassified Intrasporangiaceae) with functions of xenobiotic biodegradation and metabolism and amino acid and nucleotide metabolism were found to strongly respond to MRF. Random Forest (RF) modeling further revealed that these 10 bacterial indicator taxa act as drivers for soil dehydrogenase, acid phosphatase, pH, TK, and C/N cycling, which directly and/or indirectly determine the rice yield. Our study demonstrated the explicit links between bacterial indicator communities, community function, soil nutrient cycling, and crop yield under organic and inorganic amendments, and highlighted the advantages of the combined chemical and organic fertilization in agroecosystems.

Highlights

  • Modern agriculture is facing the challenge of meeting the increasing demand for agricultural products [1]

  • Most of the soil properties’ indices, such as total N (TN), available P (AP), available K (AK), soil organic matter (SOM), microbial biomass carbon (MBC), MBN, acid phosphatase, and dehydrogenase, reached their peak values when subjected to mushroom residues (MR) (Supplementary Table S1)

  • The maximum yield was observed under MRF, and no significant difference between F and MR treatments in terms of rice yield (p > 0.05) was observed

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Summary

Introduction

Modern agriculture is facing the challenge of meeting the increasing demand for agricultural products [1]. Chemical fertilization is considered an effective way to maintain the agricultural yield in agroecosystems [2]; excessive use of chemical fertilizers has triggered a series of environmental problems (accumulation of heavy metals in soil, water eutrophication, and soil acidification) [3,4,5] Microorganisms, especially the relevant functional species, play vital roles in agricultural soil multi-nutrient cycling and crop disease biocontrol [8,9] Such taxa use the substances from the fertilizers to form absorbed nutrients for the plants and indirectly regulate soil pH through biochemical metabolism, which provides the optimum conditions for microbial community growth and crop yield promotion [10]. The effect of simultaneous chemical-organic fertilization on community functions is a topic that remains unexplored

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