Soil microbial communities as potential regulators of N₂O sources in highly acidic soils

Highlights

● Soil pH was a key driver of N₂O emission and sources in acidic soils.

● N₂O emission was significantly positively associated with the ratio of ITS to 16S.

● N₂O was significantly correlated with bacterial and fungal community composition.

● Fungi contributed to N₂O in highly acidic tea plantations and vegetable fields.

Abstract

Acidic soil is a main source of global nitrous oxide (N₂O) emissions. However, the mechanism behind the high N₂O emissions from acidic soils remains a knowledge gap. The objective of this microcosm incubation study was to pin-point the microbial mechanisms involved in N₂O production processes in acidic soils. For that purpose, the isotopic signatures and microbial community structure and composition of four soil samples were examined. The results showed that highly acid soils (pH = 3.51) emitted 89 times more N₂O than alkaline soils (pH = 7.95) under the same nitrogen (N) inputs. Fungal denitrification caused high N₂O emissions in acidic soils. ITS to 16S abundance ratio was positively correlated with cumulative N₂O emissions from the tested soils. The highly acid soils (pH < 4.5) showed greater fungal nirK gene abundance and lower abundance of AOA-amoA, AOB-amoA, nirK, nosZ I and nosZ II genes. The unclassified Aspergillaceae fungi (63.65%) dominated the highly acidic soils and was the most strongly correlated genus with N₂O emissions. These findings highlight that soil microbial community structures, denitrifying fungi in particular, shaped by low pH (pH < 4.5) lead to high N₂O emissions from acidic soils.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

nitrous oxide / ITS/16S ratio / fungal denitrification / soil pH / vegetable field / tea plantation

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Acknowledgments

We greatly appreciate the support of Professor Yuzhong Li from Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences for the technical assistance in the isotope signature determination. This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42007031).

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Electronic supplementary material

Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.1007/s42832-023-0178-2 and is accessible for authorized users.

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