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Microbial Enzymatic Activities and Community-Level Physiological Profiles (CLPP) in Subsoil Layers Are Altered by Harvest Residue Management Practices in a Tropical Eucalyptus grandis Plantation

Microbial Ecology volume 78, pages 528–533 (2019)Cite this article

Abstract

Harvest residue management is a key issue for the sustainability of Eucalyptus plantations established on poor soils. Soil microbial communities contribute to soil fertility by the decomposition of the organic matter (OM), but little is known about the effect of whole-tree harvesting (WTH) in comparison to stem only harvesting (SOH) on soil microbial functional diversity in Eucalyptus plantations. We studied the effects of harvest residue management (branches, leaves, bark) of Eucalyptus grandis trees on soil enzymatic activities and community-level physiological profiles in a Brazilian plantation. We measured soil microbial enzymatic activities involved in OM decomposition and we compared the community level physiological profiles (CLPP) of the soil microbes in WTH and SOH plots. WTH decreased enzyme activities and catabolic potential of the soil microbial community. Furthermore, these negative effects on soil functional diversity were mainly observed below the 0–5 cm layer (5–10 and 10–20 cm), suggesting that WTH can be harmful to the soil health in these plantations.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful corrections and comments contributing to improve this article.

Funding

This work was supported by a grant overseen by the French National Research Agency (ANR) as part of the “Investissements d’Avenir” program (ANR-11-LABX-0002-01, Laboratory of Excellence ARBRE). FM holds a PhD fellowship awarded by the Région Lorraine and the Laboratory of excellence ARBRE (BRIDGE project). We acknowledge the staff of the Itatinga Experimental Station (ESALQ-USP), and Eder Araujo da Silva and Floragro for their technical support for the sampling. This site belongs to the SOERE F-ORE-T network, which is supported annually by ECOFOR, AllEnvi and the French national research infrastructure ANAEE (http://www.anaeefrance.fr/fr/).

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Author notes

  1. François Maillard, Valentin Leduc, Marc Buée and Agnès Robin contributed equally to this work.

Affiliations

  1. Université de Lorraine, Inra, IAM, F-54000, Nancy, France

    François Maillard, Valentin Leduc, Cyrille Bach & Marc Buée

  2. ESALQ, Univ São Paulo, Piracicaba, SP, 3418-900, Brazil

    José Leonardo de Moraes Gonçalves, Fernando Dini Androte & Agnès Robin

  3. INRA UR 1138 Biogéochimie des Ecosystèmes Forestiers, Centre INRA de Nancy, Champenoux, France

    Laurent Saint-André

  4. Eco&Sols, Univ Montpellier, CIRAD, INRA, IRD, Montpellier SupAgro, Montpellier, France

    Jean-Paul Laclau & Agnès Robin

  5. CIRAD, UMR Eco&Sols, Piracicaba, SP, 13418-900, Brazil

    Agnès Robin

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  1. François Maillard
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  2. Valentin Leduc
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Correspondence to François Maillard.

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Figure S1
figure 4

Sampling design. Black dots represent Eucalyptus grandis trees. R 1:6 are the identification codes of the samples for one plot. R6 sample position was randomly chosen in each plot. Cross represents the sampling zone near each Eucalyptus grandis tree. (PNG 271 kb)

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Maillard, F., Leduc, V., Bach, C. et al. Microbial Enzymatic Activities and Community-Level Physiological Profiles (CLPP) in Subsoil Layers Are Altered by Harvest Residue Management Practices in a Tropical Eucalyptus grandis Plantation. Microb Ecol 78, 528–533 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-018-1298-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-018-1298-6

Keywords

  • Tropical forest soil
  • Forest residue management
  • Eucalyptus grandis
  • Enzyme activities
  • CLPP