Microscale heterogeneity of soil bacterial communities under long-term fertilizations in fluvo-aquic soils

Highlights

• Both organic and inorganic fertilizations stimulate soil aggregation.

• Organic and inorganic fertilizers enhance organic carbon storage at aggregate scale.

• Aggregate-associated bacterial communities were more sensitive to organic fertilizers than to chemical ones.

• The complexity of bacterial network structures decreased with decreasing of aggregate size.

• The competitive interactions among bacterial communities were intensified with decreasing of aggregate size.

Abstract

Differently sized soil aggregates, with non-uniform distribution of space and nutrients, provide spatially heterogeneous microenvironments for microorganisms and are important for controlling microbial community ecology and biogeochemistry in soils. Here, we investigated the prokaryotic communities within different aggregate-size fractions: macroaggregate (>0.25 mm), microaggregate (0.053–0.25 mm) and silt+ clay (<0.053 mm). These were isolated from fluvo-aquic soils under 39-year fertilization strategies: no fertilizer (CK), chemical fertilizer (NPK), manure fertilizer (M), and combination of manure and chemical fertilizers (MNPK). The results showed that the proportion of macroaggregate, soil aggregate-associated organic carbon (SOC) content and aggregate stability were all significantly increased by both manure and chemical fertilizations. Organic fertilizations (M and MNPK) more effectively boosted formation and stability of macroaggregates and enhanced SOC concentration than NPK. The distribution patterns of microorganisms in aggregates were primarily shaped by fertilization and aggregate size. They explained 76.9% of the variance in bacterial community compositions. Fertilizations, especially with organic fertilizers primarily transitioned bacterial communities from slow-growing oligotrophic groups (e.g., Chloroflexi) dominance to fast-growing copiotrophic groups (e.g., Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes) dominance across all aggregate sizes. Macroaggregates possessed a more stable bacterial community and efficiency of resource transfer, while smaller aggregates increased antagonism and weakened mutualism among bacterial communities. Overall, combination of manure and chemical fertilizers was crucial for increasing SOC content and aggregation, leading to a clear shift in bacterial community structures at aggregate scale.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Bacterial community / Soil aggregate / Long-term fertilization / Soil organic carbon (SOC)

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Acknowledgments

This work was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42007076), the Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation (ZR2020QD116 and ZR2019BD032), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2020T130387 and 2019M652448).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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