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Rhizosphere processes in nitrate-rich barley soil tripled both N2O and N2 losses due to enhanced bacterial and fungal denitrification

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Abstract

Background and aims

Plants can directly affect nitrogen (N) transformation processes at the micro-ecological scale when soil comes into contact with roots. Due to the methodological limitations in measuring direct N2 losses in plant-soil systems, however, the effect of rhizosphere processes on N2O production and reduction to N2 has rarely been quantified.

Methods

For the first time, we developed a robotic continuous flow plant-soil incubation system (using a He+O2 + CO2) combined with N2O 15N site preference approach to examine the effect of plant root activity (barley – Hordeum vulgare L.) on: i) soil-borne N2O and N2 emissions, ii) the specific contribution of different pathways to N2O fluxes in moist soils (85% water holding capacity) receiving different inorganic N forms.

Results

Our results showed that when a nitrate-based N fertiliser was applied, the presence of plants tripled both N2O and N2 losses during the growth period but did not alter the N2O/(N2O + N2) product ratio. The 15N site preference data indicated that bacterial denitrification was the dominant source contributing to the observed N2O fluxes in both nitrate and ammonium treated soils, whereas the presence of barley increased the contribution of fungal N2O in the nitrate treated soils. During the post-harvest period, N2O and N2 emissions significantly increased in the ammonium-fertilised treatment, being more pronounced in the soil with a senescing root system.

Conclusion

Overall, our study showed a significant interaction between rhizosphere processes and N forms on the magnitude, patterns, and sources of soil borne N2O and N2 emissions in moist agricultural soils.

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Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft through the project “Fluxes and mechanisms of permanent nitrogen removal and N2O production in a heavy nitrogen loaded regions of China” (GZ 1262). This work was also supported by the TÜBITAK (119R042), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 41907024), the Scientific Instrument and Equipment Development Project of CAS (YJKYYQ20170058) and UK-China Virtual Joint Centre for Agricultural Nitrogen (CINAg, BB/N013468/1), which is jointly supported by the Newton Fund, via UK BBSRC and NERC, and the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology. We thank Annete Giesseman, Martina Heuer and Jennifer Ehe for stable isotope analysis, Ute Tambor for Nmin, and Daniel Ziehe for C-N analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Thünen Institute of Climate-Smart Agriculture, Federal Research Institute for Rural Areas, Forestry and Fisheries, Bundesallee 65, 38116, Braunschweig, Germany

    Mehmet Senbayram, Reinhard Well & Stefan Burkart

  2. Institute of Plant Nutrition and Soil Science, University of Harran, Osmanbey, 63000, Sanliurfa, Turkey

    Mehmet Senbayram

  3. Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Science, Nanjing, 210008, China

    Jun Shan

  4. Institute of Bio- and Geosciences, Agrosphere (IBG-3), Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, 52425, Jülich, Germany

    Roland Bol

  5. School of Natural Sciences, Bangor University, Gwynedd, LL57 2UW, UK

    David L. Jones

  6. SoilsWest, UWA School of Agriculture and Environment, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, 6009, Australia

    David L. Jones

  7. Beijing Key Laboratory of Biodiversity and Organic Farming, College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, China

    Di Wu

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  1. Mehmet Senbayram
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Senbayram, M., Well, R., Shan, J. et al. Rhizosphere processes in nitrate-rich barley soil tripled both N2O and N2 losses due to enhanced bacterial and fungal denitrification. Plant Soil 448, 509–522 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-020-04457-9

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