Nitrogen input enhances microbial carbon use efficiency by altering plant-microbe-mineral interactions

作  者:Feng XH, Qin SQ, Zhang DY, Chen PD, Hu J, Wang GQ, Liu Y, Wei B, Li QL, Yang YH*, Chen LY*
影响因子:13.211
刊物名称:Global Change Biology
出版年份:2022
卷:  期:  页码:DOI:10.1111/gcb.16229

论文摘要:

Microbial growth and respiration are at the core of the soil carbon (C) cycle, as these microbial physiological performances ultimately determine the fate of soil C. Microbial C use efficiency (CUE), a critical metric to characterize the partitioning of C between microbial growth and respiration, thus controls the sign and magnitude of soil C-climate feedback. Despite its importance, the response of CUE to nitrogen (N) input and the relevant regulatory mechanisms remain poorly understood, leading to large uncertainties in predicting soil C dynamics under continuous N input. By combining a multi-level field N addition experiment with a substrate-independent 18O-H2O labelling approach as well as high-throughput sequencing and mineral analysis, here we elucidated how N-induced changes in plant–microbial–mineral interactions drove the responses of microbial CUE to N input. We found that microbial CUE increased significantly as a consequence of enhanced microbial growth after 6-year N addition. In contrast to the prevailing view, the elevated microbial growth and CUE were not mainly driven by the reduced stoichiometric imbalance, but strongly associated with the increased soil C accessibility from weakened mineral protection. Such attenuated organo–mineral association was further linked to the N-induced changes in the plant community and the increased oxalic acid in the soil. These findings provide empirical evidence for the tight linkage between mineral-associated C dynamics and microbial physiology, highlighting the need to disentangle the complex plant–microbe–mineral interactions to improve soil C prediction under anthropogenic N input.
全文链接:https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.16229