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Distinct Denitrifying Phenotypes of Predominant Bacteria Modulate Nitrous Oxide Metabolism in Two Typical Cropland Soils

  • Soil Microbiology
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Abstract

Denitrifying nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions in agroecosystems result from variations in microbial composition and soil properties. However, the microbial mechanisms of differential N2O emissions in agricultural soils are less understood. In this study, microcosm experiments using two main types of Chinese cropland soil were conducted with different supplements of nitrate and glucose to simulate the varying nitrogen and carbon conditions. The results show that N2O accumulation in black soil (BF) was significantly higher than that in fluvo-aquic soil (FF) independent of nitrogen and carbon. The abundance of most denitrifying genes was significantly higher in FF, but the ratios of genes responsible for N2O production (nirS and nirK) to the gene responsible for N2O reduction (nosZ) did not significantly differ between the two soils. However, the soils showed obvious discrepancies in denitrifying bacterial communities, with a higher abundance of N2O-generating bacteria in BF and a higher abundance of N2O-reducing bacteria in FF. High accumulation of N2O was verified by the bacterial isolates of Rhodanobacter predominated in BF due to a lack of N2O reduction capacity. The dominance of Castellaniella and others in FF led to a rapid reduction in N2O and thus less N2O accumulation, as demonstrated when the corresponding isolate was inoculated into the studied soils. Therefore, the different phenotypes of N2O metabolism of the distinct denitrifiers predominantly colonized the two soils, causing differing N2O accumulation. This knowledge would help to develop a strategy for mitigating N2O emissions in agricultural soils by regulating the phenotypes of N2O metabolism.

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Data Availability

The raw Illumina sequence data generated in this study have been deposited to the GenBank Sequence Read Archive (SRA) database in the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) under the accession number PRJNA755188. 16S rRNA gene sequences for selected predominant bacterial strains were deposited in GenBank under accession numbers MZ824722–MZ824747.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their gratitude to Dr. Wei Zhang (Institute of Applied Ecology, CAS) for her help in collecting the black soil.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC 31971526, 31861133018), the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB40020204), and the Key R&D project of Ministry of Science and Technology (2017YFD0200102).

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Q.W. and X.Z. conceived and designed the study; Q.W., M. J., S.Y., J.L., X.W., and B.L. designed the methodology; Q.W. and S.Y. collected the data and performed the data analysis; X.J. and B.L. were involved in the discussion of results; Q.W. wrote the first draft of the manuscript. Q.W. and X.Z. contributed to revisions. All authors contributed to the drafts and gave the final approval for publication.

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Correspondence to Xiaojun Zhang.

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Wu, Q., Ji, M., Yu, S. et al. Distinct Denitrifying Phenotypes of Predominant Bacteria Modulate Nitrous Oxide Metabolism in Two Typical Cropland Soils. Microb Ecol 86, 509–520 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-022-02085-7

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