Abstract
BackgroundThe interaction mechanism between crop and soil microbial communities is a key issue in both agriculture and soil ecology. However, how soil microbial communities respond to crop planting and ultimately affect crop health still remain unclear. In this research, we explored how soil microbial communities shifted during tobacco cultivation under different rotation systems (control, maize rotation, lily rotation and turnip rotation).ResultsOur analyses showed that soil microbial communities had a general response pattern to tobacco planting, as the abundances of Proteobacteria and Planctomycetes increased while Acidobacteria and Verrucomicrobia decreased during tobacco cultivation, no matter which rotation system was adopted. Notably, tobacco decreased the diversity and co-occurrence of soil microorganisms, but maize rotation might suppress tobacco bacterial wilt by alleviating the decrease in biodiversity and co-occurrence. Molecular ecological network analysis indicated that there was stronger competition between potential disease suppressive (e.g., Acidobacteria) and inducible bacteria (e.g., Chloroflexi) in maize rotation systems. Both soil properties (e.g., pH, Ca content) and microbial communities of tobacco mature period depended on their counterparts of fallow period, and all these factors shaped tobacco disease comprehensively.ConclusionsBoth soil microbial communities of fallow stage and tobacco selection shaped the communities of tobacco mature stage. And effective rotation crop (maize) could decrease the incidence of tobacco bacterial wilt by alleviating the decrease in diversity and co-occurrences of microbial populations. This study would deepen our understanding about succession mechanism of soil microbial communities during crop cultivation and their relationship with crop health.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12866-016-0845-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
The interaction mechanism between crop and soil microbial communities is a key issue in both agriculture and soil ecology
Illumina sequencing and data processing Tobacco cultivated under different rotation systems was investigated, which were continuous tobacco cropping (Control), tobacco-maize rotation cropping (MR), tobacco-lily rotation cropping (LR), and tobacco-turnip rotation cropping (TR)
K and Ni were significantly (p < 0.05) less abundant in Control, as well as the amount of Ca was higher in MR
Summary
The interaction mechanism between crop and soil microbial communities is a key issue in both agriculture and soil ecology. Unrevealing how soil microbial communities change in response to crop planting is a central issue in both ecology and agriculture [1]. Other studies demonstrated the significance of temporal variability, so examining the effect of management practices on soil quality based on microbial communities should consider seasonal changes [7]. Due to these variations, studies about soil microbial communities of a same crop were usually not complied with each other. The spatial and temporal variabilities of microbial communities are ubiquitous, such background noises must be excluded, at least taken into consideration, when exploring general response pattern of soil microbial communities to crop planting
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