Microbial Nitrogen-Cycle Gene Abundance in Soil of Cropland Abandoned for Different Periods.

ABSTRACT: In Inner Mongolia, steppe grasslands face desertification or degradation because of human overuse and abandonment after inappropriate agricultural management. The soils in these abandoned croplands exist in heterogeneous environments characterized by widely fluctuating microbial growth. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction analysis of microbial genes encoding proteins involved in the nitrogen cycle was used to study Azotobacter species, nitrifiers, and denitrifiers in the soils from steppe grasslands and croplands abandoned for 2, 6, and 26 years. Except for nitrifying archaea and nitrous oxide-reducing bacteria, the relative genotypic abundance of microbial communities involved in nitrogen metabolism differed by approximately 2- to 10-fold between abandoned cropland and steppe grassland

SUBMITTER: Huhe 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4854452 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature