Correction: Conversion of monoculture cropland and open grassland to agroforestry alters the abundance of soil bacteria, fungi and soil-N-cycling genes.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: PLOS ONE Staff
PROVIDER: S-EPMC6667153 | biostudies-literature | 2019
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Correction: Conversion of monoculture cropland and open grassland to agroforestry alters the abundance of soil bacteria, fungi and soil-N-cycling genes.
PloS one 20190730 7
[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0218779.]. ...[more]
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Project description:Integration of trees in agroforestry systems can increase the system sustainability compared to monocultures. The resulting increase in system complexity is likely to affect soil-N cycling by altering soil microbial community structure and functions. Our study aimed to assess the abundance of genes encoding enzymes involved in soil-N cycling in paired monoculture and agroforestry cropland in a Phaeozem soil, and paired open grassland and agroforestry grassland in Histosol and Anthrosol soils. The soil fungi-to-bacteria ratio was greater in the tree row than in the crop or grass rows of the monoculture cropland and open grassland in all soil types, possibly due to increased input of tree residues and the absence of tillage in the Phaeozem (cropland) soil. In the Phaeozem (cropland) soil, gene abundances of amoA indicated a niche differentiation between archaeal and bacterial ammonia oxidizers that distinctly separated the influence of the tree row from the crop row and monoculture system. Abundances of nitrate (napA and narG), nitrite (nirK and nirS) and nitrous oxide reductase genes (nosZ clade I) were largely influenced by soil type rather than management system. The soil types' effects were associated with their differences in soil organic C, total N and pH. Our findings show that in temperate regions, conversion of monoculture cropland and open grassland to agroforestry systems can alter the abundance of soil bacteria and fungi and soil-N-cycling genes, particularly genes involved in ammonium oxidation.
| S-EPMC6597161 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Background Alley-cropping systems in the temperate zone are a type of agroforestry in which rows of fast-growing trees are alternated with rows of annual crops. With numerous environmental benefits, temperate agroforestry is considered a promising alternative to conventional agriculture and soil fungi may play a key in maintaining productivity of these systems. Agroforestry systems that are established for more than 10 years have shown to increase the fungal biomass and impact the composition of soil fungal communities. Investigations of soil fungi in younger temperate agroforestry systems are scarce and the temporal dynamic of these changes is not understood. Methods Our study was conducted in a young poplar-based alley cropping and adjacent monoculture cropland system in an Arenosol soil in north-west Germany. We investigated the temporal dynamics of fungal populations after the establishment of agroforestry by collecting soil samples half, one, and one and a half years after conversion of cropland to agroforestry. Samples were collected within the agroforestry tree row, at 1, 7, and 24 m distance from the tree row within the crop row, and in an adjacent conventional monoculture cropland. The biomass of soil fungi, Asco-, and Basidiomycota was determined by real-time PCR. Soil fungal community composition and diversity were obtained from amplicon sequencing. Results Differences in the community composition of soil fungi in the tree row and arable land were detected as early as half a year following the conversion of monoculture cropland to agroforestry. In the tree row, soil fungal communities in the plots strongly diverged with the age of the system. The presence of young trees did not affect the biomass of soil fungi. Conclusions The composition of soil fungal communities responded rapidly to the integration of trees into arable land through agroforestry, whereas the fungal biomass was not affected during the first one and a half years after planting the trees. Fungal communities under the trees gradually diversified. Adaptation to spatially heterogeneous belowground biomass of the trees and understory vegetation or stochastic phenomena due to limited exchange among fungal populations may account for this effect; long-term monitoring might help unravelling the cause.
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Project description:Background:Land use change significantly alters soil organic carbon content and the microbial community. Therefore, in the present study, the effect of changing cropland to grassland on structural and functional soil microbial diversity was evaluated. The specific aims were (i) to identify the most prominent members of the fungal communities and their relevant ecological guild groups; (ii) to assess changes in the diversity of ammonia-oxidizing archaea; (iii) to determine the relationships between microbial diversity and selected physical and chemical properties. Methods:We investigated microbial diversity and activity indicators, bulk density and the water-holding capacity of sandy soil under both cropland and 25-year-old grassland (formerly cropland) in Trzebieszów, in the Podlasie Region, Poland. Microbial diversity was assessed by: the relative abundance of ammonia-oxidizing archaea, fungal community composition and functional diversity. Microbial activity was assessed by soil enzyme (dehydrogenase, ?-glucosidase) and respiration tests. Results:It was shown that compared to cropland, grassland has a higher soil organic carbon content, microbial biomass, basal respiration, rate of enzyme activity, richness and diversity of the microbial community, water holding capacity and the structure of the fungal and ammonia-oxidizing archaea communities was also altered. The implications of these results for soil quality and soil health are also discussed. The results suggest that grassland can have a significant phytosanitary capacity with regard to ecosystem services, due to the prominent presence of beneficial and antagonistic microbes. Moreover, the results also suggest that grassland use may improve the status of soil organic carbon and nitrogen dynamics, thereby increasing the relative abundance of fungi and ammonia-oxidizing archaea.
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Project description:Assessments of the global carbon (C) cycle typically rely on simplified models which consider large areas as homogeneous in terms of the response of soils to land use or consider very broad land classes. For example, "cropland" is typically modelled as an aggregation of distinct practices and individual crops over large regions. Here, we use the process-based Rothamsted soil Carbon Model (RothC model), which has a history of being successfully applied at a global scale, to calculate attainable SOC stocks and C mineralization rates for each of c. 17,000 regions (combination of soil type and texture, climate type, initial land use and country) in the World, under near-past climate conditions. We considered 28 individual crops and, for each, multiple production practices, plus 16 forest types and 1 grassland class (total of 80 classes). We find that conversion to cropland can result in SOC increases, particularly when the soil remains covered with crop residues (an average gain of 12 t C/ha) or using irrigation (4 t C/ha), which are mutually reinforcing effects. Attainable SOC stocks vary significantly depending on the land use class, particularly for cropland. Common aggregations in global modelling of a single agricultural class would be inaccurate representations of these results. Attainable SOC stocks obtained here were compared to long-term experiment data and are well aligned with the literature. Our results provide a regional and detailed understanding of C sequestration that will also enable better greenhouse gas reporting at national level as alternatives to IPCC tier 2 defaults.
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Project description:Camelina [Camelina sativa (L.) Crantz] of the Brassicaceae family is a potential alternative and oilseed biofuel crop for wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)-based cropping systems of the Inland Pacific Northwest (PNW) of the United States. We investigated the effect of this relatively new rotational crop on soil microbial communities. An 8-year cropping systems experiment was initiated in 2007 at Lind, WA, to compare a 3-year rotation of winter wheat (WW)-camelina (C)-fallow (F) to the typical 2-year WW-F rotation. All phases of both rotations (total = 20 plots) were present every year to allow valid statistical analysis and data interpretations. Monoculture WW-F is the dominant system practiced by the vast majority of farmers on 1.56 million ha of cropland in the PNW drylands that receive <300 mm average annual precipitation. Microbial abundance and community composition were determined using phospholipid fatty acid analysis (PLFA) from soil samples collected during 3 consecutive years beginning in 2010. The abundance of fungi, mycorrhizae, Gram positive and negative bacteria, and total microbial abundance all declined over the 3-year period in the WW-C-F rotation compared to the WW-F rotation. All microbial lipid biomarkers were significantly less in fallow compared to WW of the WW-C-F rotation. The 2-year WW-F rotation demonstrated few differences in microbial lipid abundance and community structure between the rotation phases. Microbial abundance declined and community structure shifted in the 3-year WW-C-F rotation likely due to the combination of a Brassica crop followed by a 13-month-long fallow. The results of this study suggest that camelina in combination with a fallow period may disrupt microbial communities that have become stable under historical WW-F monocropping. Such disturbances have the potential to affect soil processes that have been provided by wheat-adapted microbial communities. However, the disruption appears to be short-lived with the microbial abundance of WW in the WW-C-F rotation, returning to similar levels observed in the WW-F rotation.
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Project description: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 soils. Although nitrogen-cycle gene abundances varied with abandonment time, the abundance patterns of nitrogen-cycle genes separated distinctly into abandoned cropland versus light-grazing steppe grassland, despite the lack of any cultivation for over a quarter-century. Plant biomass and plant diversity exerted a significant effect on the abundance of microbial communities that mediate the nitrogen cycle (P < 0.002 and P < 0.03, respectively). The present study elucidates the ecology of bacteria that mediate the nitrogen cycle in recently abandoned croplands.
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