Abstract
Saline-alkalisation of the soil environment and microorganism is a global challenge. However, relevant studies on the effects of saline-alkali stress on soil bacterial communities are limited. In this study, we investigated the effects of saline-alkali stress on the carbon source metabolic utilisation of the microbial community, bacterial diversity, and composition in soil using Biolog Ecoplate and 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing. Biolog Ecoplate results showed that saline-alkali stress decreased the metabolic activity and functional diversity, and changed the utilisation characteristics of carbon sources in soil microorganisms. Particularly, high level of saline-alkali stress significantly decreased the utilisation of carbohydrates and amino acids carbon sources. The results of 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing showed that high level of saline-alkali stress significantly reduced the diversity of soil bacterial communities. In addition, high level of saline-alkali stress significantly decreased the relative abundances of some key bacterial taxa, such as Gemmatimonas, Sphingomonas, and Bradyrhizobium. Furthermore, as saline-alkali content increased, the soil catalase, protease, urease, and sucrase activities also significantly decreased. Collectively, these results provide new insight for studies on the changes in the soil bacterial community and soil enzyme activity under saline-alkali stress.
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This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (Grant numbers [31972507] and [U21A20182]), and Graduate Innovation Fund of Harbin Normal University (Grant number HSDBSCX2021-105).
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DY conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analysed the data, prepared figures and tables, and authored drafts of the paper. LT conceived and designed the experiments, prepared figures and revised the manuscript. YC performed the experiments and sample collection. JC conducted experiments and analysed data. LL conducted experiments and analysed data. CG conceived and designed the experiments, and revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Yang, D., Tang, L., Cui, Y. et al. Saline-alkali stress reduces soil bacterial community diversity and soil enzyme activities. Ecotoxicology 31, 1356–1368 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10646-022-02595-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10646-022-02595-7