Roles of straw return in shaping denitrifying bacteria in rice rhizosphere soils through effects on root exudates and soil metabolites

Highlights

● Straw return lowered the abundances of nirS and nosZ genes in low nitrogen soil.

● Straw return elevated the abundances of nirK , nirS , and nosZ genes in high nitrogen soil.

● Straw return decreased the relative abundances of root exudates in low nitrogen soil.

● Straw return increased the relative abundances of root exudates in high nitrogen soil.

● Alerted composition of root exudates and soil metabolites shaped rhizosphere denitrifying bacteria.

Abstract

Rhizosphere denitrification is affected by straw return. However, the roles of root exudates and soil metabolites in shaping denitrifying bacteria under wheat straw return are relatively unexplored. Here, wheat straw was amended at 2% (w/w) to two paddy soils with different levels of nitrogen for rice cultivation, which altered the denitrifying bacterial community compositions of both soils. However, straw amendment decreased the abundances of the nirS and nosZ genes by 63.7% and 30.3% in the low nitrogen soil from Taizhou (TZ) but increased the nirK, nirS, and nosZ gene abundances by 116%, 81.0%, and 155.5% for the high nitrogen soil from Yixing (YX). Correspondingly, straw amendment decreased the relative abundance of root exudates in the categories of amino acids and benzenes for rice cultivated in TZ soil but increased the relative abundance of root exudates in the categories of amino acids for rice grown in YX soil. With elevated root exudates, straw amendment enhanced the relative abundances of many soil metabolites in YX soil such as sorbitol, myristic acid, and pentadecanoic acid, with fold changes > 2. These results suggest that straw return may alter the composition of root exudates and soil metabolites thereby affecting rhizosphere denitrifying bacterial communities and function genes.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

straw return / denitrifying bacteria / soil organic carbon / root exudates / metabolites

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the National Key Research and Development Project of China (Grant No. 2021YFD1700801), the Key Research and Development Project of Jiangsu Province (Grant No. D21YFD17008), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41601261).

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Electronic supplementary material

Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.1007/s42832-024-0261-3 and is accessible for authorized users.

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