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The causes of the selection of biological nitrification inhibition (BNI) in relation to ecosystem functioning and a research agenda to explore them

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Abstract

Biological nitrification inhibition (BNI) has already led to several studies mainly focused on underlying molecular mechanisms and applications to agriculture. We argue that it is also important to study BNI more systematically from the ecological and evolutionary points of view to understand its implications for plants and soil nitrifiers as well as its consequences for ecosystems. Therefore, we propose here a dedicated research agenda identifying the most critical research questions: (1) How is BNI distributed across plant phylogeny and why has it been selected? (2) What are the costs-to-benefits balance of producing BNI compounds and the relative impacts on BNI evolution? (3) Can we understand the evolutionary pressures leading to BNI and identify the environmental conditions favorable to BNI plants? (4) How has BNI coevolved with plant preference for ammonium vs. nitrate? (5) Diverse BNI compounds and various inhibition mechanisms have been described, but implications of this diversity are not understood. Does it allow inhibition of various groups of nitrifiers? (6) Does this diversity of BNI compounds increase the efficiency, spatial extension, and duration of BNI effect? (7) What are the impacts of BNI compounds on other soil functions? (8) Can field experiments, coupled to scanning of the diversity of BNI capabilities within plant communities, evaluate whether BNI influences plant-plant competition and plant coexistence? (9) Can field quantification of various nitrogen (N) fluxes assess whether BNI lead to more efficient N cycling with lower losses and hence increased primary production? (10) Can the impact of BNI on N budgets and climate (through its impact on N2O emissions and its indirect impact on carbon budget) be evaluated at the regional scale? We discuss why implementing this research program is crucial both for the sake of knowledge and to develop applications of BNI for agriculture.

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Acknowledgements

Discussions around this paper were made possible by the GainGrass Project (Global Assessment of Nitrification Inhibition by tropical Grasses Project, https://anr.fr/Project-ANR-19-CE02-0009) funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR). XLR also acknowledges funding from the European Joint Programme on Soil (EJP Soil). This manuscript is dedicated to the memory of Leonid Petrovich Rikhvanov (1945-2020), Professor of the Tomsk Polytechnic University, Russia, and of Jean Bretagne (1940-2021), Emeritus Research Director at CNRS and at the Laboratoire de Physique des Gaz et des Plasmas, Saclay University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sorbonne Université, CNRS, INRAE, IRD, Université de Paris, UPEC, UMR 7618, Institute of Ecology and Environmental Sciences – Paris, Tour 44-45, 4 place Jussieu, 75005, Paris, France

    Jean-Christophe Lata, Tharaniya Srikanthasamy, Sarah Konaré & Sébastien Barot

  2. Department of Geoecology and Geochemistry, Institute of Natural Resources, Tomsk Polytechnic University, 30, Lenin Street, Tomsk, 634050, Russia

    Jean-Christophe Lata

  3. INRAE, CNRS, Université Lyon 1, Laboratoire d’Ecologie Microbienne, UMR INRAE 1418, UMR CNRS 5557, 43 boulevard du 11 novembre 1918, 69622, Villeurbanne, France

    Xavier Le Roux

  4. FR-SN / Research Station of Lamto (CRE), Research Pole Environment and Sustainable Development, Nangui Abrogoua University (Ex University of Abobo-Adjamé), 02 BP 801, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire

    Kouamé Fulgence Koffi

  5. Université de Dédougou, BP 176, Dédougou, Burkina Faso

    Lambiénou Yé

  6. LERF, IDR, Université Nazi BONI de Bobo-Dioulasso, BP 1091, Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso

    Lambiénou Yé

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  1. Jean-Christophe Lata
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Lata, JC., Le Roux, X., Koffi, K.F. et al. The causes of the selection of biological nitrification inhibition (BNI) in relation to ecosystem functioning and a research agenda to explore them. Biol Fertil Soils 58, 207–224 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00374-022-01630-3

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