Abstract
Soil rhizosphere microorganisms play crucial roles in promoting plant nutrient absorption and maintaining soil health. However, the effects of different phosphorus (P) managements on soil microbial communities in a slope farming system are poorly understood. Here, rhizosphere microbial communities under two P fertilization levels—conventional (125 kg P2O5 ha–1, P125) and optimal (90 kg P2O5 ha–1, P90)—were compared at four growth stages of maize in a typical sloped farming system. The richness and diversity of rhizosphere bacterial communities showed significant dynamic changes throughout the growth period of maize, while different results were observed in fungal communities. However, both the P fertilization levels and the growth stages influenced the structure and composition of the maize rhizosphere microbiota. Notably, compared to P125, Pseudomonas, Conexibacter, Mycobacterium, Acidothermus, Glomeromycota, and Talaromyces were significantly enriched in the different growth stages of maize under P90, while the relative abundance of Fusarium was significantly decreased during maize harvest. Soil total nitrogen (TN) and pH are the first environmental drivers of change in bacterial and fungal community structures, respectively. The abundance of Gemmatimonadota, Proteobacteria, and Cyanobacteria showed significant correlations with soil TN, while that of Basidiomycota and Mortierellomycota was significantly related to pH. Additionally, P90 strengthened the connection between bacteria, but reduced the links between fungi at the genus level. Our work helps in understanding the role of P fertilization levels in shaping the rhizosphere microbiota and may manipulate beneficial microorganisms for better P use efficiency.
Highlights
Phosphorus (P) is an essential mineral nutrient for plant growth and development (Wang et al, 2017)
All the sampling efforts tended to reach the saturation plateau in the rarefaction analysis and were effective in covering the full extent of almost a majority of the bacterial and fungal diversity according to a 97% sequence similarity in the rank abundance curve approach (Supplementary Figure 2)
Our research showed that the diversity and richness of the bacterial and fungal communities during the growth cycle of maize respond differently to the two P input levels
Summary
Phosphorus (P) is an essential mineral nutrient for plant growth and development (Wang et al, 2017). Many previous studies have shown that plants are not efficient in using phosphate fertilizers (Johri et al, 2015; Batool and Iqbal, 2019), which is due to soil characteristics causing the applied phosphate fertilizer to be transformed into increasingly less soluble forms through various reactions (e.g., precipitation and adsorption) (Withers et al, 2001; Roberts and Johnston, 2015). This may lead to more phosphate fertilizer applications participating in the compounding process in the soil (Neal et al, 2021). Integrated P management practices to increase P use efficiency and to reduce environmental pollution are imperative (Roberts and Johnston, 2015)
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