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Shifts in the composition and potential functions of soil microbial communities responding to a no-tillage practice and bagasse mulching on a sugarcane plantation

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Abstract

This study examined the effect of conversion from a conventional tillage (CT) to a no-tillage (NT) practice and of bagasse mulching (M) on soil microbial community composition and potential functions, using phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) analysis and shotgun metagenome sequencing. Our results showed that both the NT and the M treatment increased microbial PLFAs. The shotgun sequencing results suggested that the functional profiles are more resistant to agricultural managements than to community compositions, which supports the hypothesis of the functional redundancy of soil microbial communities. However, some metabolism-related sequences were significantly affected by different treatments. The percentage of sequences related to metabolism of carbohydrates, especially saccharide groups, was significantly higher in the CT soils than in NT and M soils, which may be linked to lower carbon (C) availability in CT soils. Compared with CT, the NT had higher alpha diversity and more sequences related to DNA metabolism, which may be associated with higher nutrient availability. On the other hand, the M treatment decreased the percentages of sequences related to the metabolism of amino acids and derivatives, which may be due to the limited nitrogen (N) because of the high C/N ratio of bagasse. We also observed interaction effects of the NT and M treatments; although both the NT and M treatments increased the relative abundance of Proteobacteria, this variable in NT + M soils was not higher than in each single treatment. Overall, our findings suggest that the microbial communities change their composition and functionality in response to the NT and M treatments, and these shifts have the potential to affect important soil processes that sustain crop productivity, such as C sequestration and major nutrient cycles.

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Acknowledgments

Our study was supported in part by a grant-in-aid for the Global COE Program E03 for Global Eco-Risk Management from Asian Viewpoints; the YNU International Environmental Leaders Program in Sustainable Living with Environmental Risk funded by Promoting Science and Technology System Reform of the Promotion of Science and Technology, Japan; a grant from Yokohama National University and MEXT KAKENHI Grant Number 25220104. We thank the staff at the Gunung Madu Plantations for permitting this study and supporting the field experiment and Dr. Udin Hasanuddin in the Department of Agroindustrial Technology, Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Lampung for supporting the field and laboratory experiments. We also greatly appreciate Ryo Murakami in Yokohama National University and Tomoya Kosugi in Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology for supporting soil chemical analyses.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Environment and Information Sciences, Yokohama National University, Yokohama, Japan

    Toshiko Miura, Miwa Arai, Kenta Yamada, Nobuhiro Kaneko & Koichi Fujie

  2. Department of Soil Science, University of Lampung, Bandar Lampung, Indonesia

    Ainin Niswati

  3. Department of Plant Pest and Diseases, University of Lampung, Bandar Lampung, Indonesia

    I. G. Swibawa

  4. Research and Development Division of PT Gunung Madu Plantations, Bandar Lampung, Indonesia

    Sri Haryani & Heru Gunito

  5. Science Research Center, Hosei University, Tokyo, Japan

    Satoshi Shimano

  6. Department of chemical engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, 2-24-16 Naka-cho, Koganei, Tokyo, 184-8588, Japan

    Toshiko Miura

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  1. Toshiko Miura
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Miura, T., Niswati, A., Swibawa, I.G. et al. Shifts in the composition and potential functions of soil microbial communities responding to a no-tillage practice and bagasse mulching on a sugarcane plantation. Biol Fertil Soils 52, 307–322 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00374-015-1077-1

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