Dataset Information

Influence of rewetting on microbial communities involved in nitrification and denitrification in a grassland soil after a prolonged drought period.

ABSTRACT: The frequency of extreme drought and heavy rain events during the vegetation period will increase in Central Europe according to future climate change scenarios, which will affect the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems in multiple ways. In this study, we simulated an extreme drought event (40 days) at two different vegetation periods (spring and summer) to investigate season-related effects of drought and subsequent rewetting on nitrifiers and denitrifiers in a grassland soil. Abundance of the microbial groups of interest was assessed by quantification of functional genes (amoA, nirS/nirK and nosZ) via quantitative real-time PCR. Additionally, the diversity of ammonia-oxidizing archaea was determined based on fingerprinting of the archaeal amoA gene. Overall, the different time points of simulated drought and rewetting strongly influenced the obtained response pattern of microbial communities involved in N turnover as well as soil ammonium and nitrate dynamics. In spring, gene abundance of nirS was irreversible reduced after drought whereas nirK and nosZ remained unaffected. Furthermore, community composition of ammonia-oxidizing archaea was altered by subsequent rewetting although amoA gene abundance remained constant. In contrast, no drought/rewetting effects on functional gene abundance or diversity pattern of nitrifying archaea were observed in summer. Our results showed (I) high seasonal dependency of microbial community responses to extreme events, indicating a strong influence of plant-derived factors like vegetation stage and plant community composition and consequently close plant-microbe interactions and (II) remarkable resistance and/or resilience of functional microbial groups involved in nitrogen cycling to extreme weather events what might indicate that microbes in a silty soil are better adapted to stress situations as expected.

SUBMITTER: Hammerl V

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6381133 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Influence of rewetting on microbial communities involved in nitrification and denitrification in a grassland soil after a prolonged drought period.

Hammerl Verena V Kastl Eva-Maria EM Schloter Michael M Kublik Susanne S Schmidt Holger H Welzl Gerhard G Jentsch Anke A Beierkuhnlein Carl C Gschwendtner Silvia S

Scientific reports 20190219 1

The frequency of extreme drought and heavy rain events during the vegetation period will increase in Central Europe according to future climate change scenarios, which will affect the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems in multiple ways. In this study, we simulated an extreme drought event (40 days) at two different vegetation periods (spring and summer) to investigate season-related effects of drought and subsequent rewetting on nitrifiers and denitrifiers in a grassland soil. Abundance of th ...[more]

PMID: 30783152

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Project description:Global changes will result in altered precipitation patterns, among which the increasing frequency of drought events has the highest deleterious potential for agriculture. Soil microbes have shown some promise to help crops adapt to drought events, but it is uncertain how crop-associated microorganisms will respond to altered precipitation patterns. To investigate this matter, we conducted a field experiment where we seeded two wheat cultivars (one resistant to water stress and the other sensitive) that were subjected to four precipitation exclusion (PE) regimes (0%, 25%, 50%, and 75% exclusion). These cultivars were sampled seven times (every 2 weeks, from May to August) within one growing season to investigate short-term microbiome responses to altered precipitation regimes and seasonality using 16S rRNA gene and internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region amplicon sequencing. One of the most striking features of the data set was the dramatic shift in microbial community diversity, structure, and composition together with a doubling of the relative abundance of the archaeal ammonia oxidizer genus Nitrososphaera following an important drying-rewetting event. Comparatively small but significant effects of PE and wheat cultivar on microbial community diversity, composition, and structure were observed. Taken together, our results demonstrate an uneven response of microbial taxa to decreasing soil water content, which was dwarfed by drying-rewetting events, to which soil bacteria and archaea were more sensitive than fungi. Importantly, our study showed that an increase in drying-rewetting cycles will cause larger shifts in soil microbial communities than a decrease in total precipitation, suggesting that under climate changes, the distribution of precipitation will be more important than small variations in the total quantity of precipitation. IMPORTANCE Climate change will have a profound effect on the precipitation patterns of global terrestrial ecosystems. Seasonal and interannual uneven distributions of precipitation will lead to increasing frequencies and intensities of extreme drought and rainfall events, which will affect crop productivity and nutrient contents in various agroecosystems. However, we still lack knowledge about the responses of soil microbial communities to reduced precipitation and drying-rewetting events in agroecosystems. Our results demonstrated an uneven response of the soil microbiome and a dramatic shift in microbial community diversity and structure to a significant drying-rewetting event with a large increase in the relative abundance of archaeal ammonia oxidizers. These findings highlight the larger importance of rewetting of dry soils on microbial communities, as compared to decreased precipitation, with potential for changes in the soil nitrogen cycling.

Dataset Information

Influence of rewetting on microbial communities involved in nitrification and denitrification in a grassland soil after a prolonged drought period.

Publications

Influence of rewetting on microbial communities involved in nitrification and denitrification in a grassland soil after a prolonged drought period.

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