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Transcription of mcrA Gene Decreases Upon Prolonged Non-flooding Period in a Methanogenic Archaeal Community of a Paddy-Upland Rotational Field Soil

  • Soil Microbiology
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Abstract

Methanogenic archaea survive under aerated soil conditions in paddy fields, and their community is stable under these conditions. Changes in the abundance and composition of an active community of methanogenic archaea were assessed by analyzing mcrA gene (encoding α subunit of methyl-coenzyme M reductase) and transcripts during a prolonged drained period in a paddy-upland rotational field. Paddy rice (Oryza sativa L.) was planted in the flooded field and rotated with soybean (Glycine max [L.] Merr.) under upland soil conditions. Soil samples were collected from the rotational plot in the first year, with paddy rice, and in the two successive years, with soybean, at six time points, before seeding, during cultivation, and after harvest as well as from a consecutive paddy (control) plot. By the time that soybean was grown in the second year, the methanogenic archaeal community in the rotational plot maintained high mcrA transcript levels, comparable with those of the control plot community, but the levels drastically decreased by over three orders of magnitude after 2 years of upland conversion. The composition of active methanogenic archaeal communities that survived upland conversion in the rotational plot was similar to that of the active community in the control plot. These results revealed that mcrA gene transcription of methanogenic archaeal community in the rotational field was affected by a prolonged non-flooding period, longer than 1 year, indicating that unknown mechanisms maintain the stability of methanogenic archaeal community in paddy fields last up to 1 year after the onset of drainage.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Professor Emeritus Makoto Kimura from the Graduate School of Bioagricultural Sciences, Nagoya University, for his helpful suggestions and comments.

Funding Information

This work was supported in part by the Environmental Research Projects from the Sumitomo Foundation [Grant number: 143218] and by the Soil e-DNA Project from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries of Japan [Grant number: eDNA-07-101-1].

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Author notes

  1. Dongyan Liu

    Present address: CAS Key Laboratory of Mountain Ecological Restoration and Bioresource Utilization & Ecological Restoration and Biodiversity Conservation Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu, 610041, China

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Soil Biology and Chemistry, Graduate School of Bioagricultural Sciences, Nagoya University, Chikusa, Nagoya, Aichi, 464-8601, Japan

    Dongyan Liu & Susumu Asakawa

  2. NARO Tohoku Agricultural Research Center, Daisen, Akita, 014-0120, Japan

    Mizuhiko Nishida & Tomoki Takahashi

Authors
  1. Dongyan Liu
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  2. Mizuhiko Nishida
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  4. Susumu Asakawa
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dongyan Liu.

Additional information

Accession number: Sequences of mcrA genes and transcripts from methanogenic archaea obtained in the course of the present study have been deposited in GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ under accession numbers LC154114-LC154792.

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Liu, D., Nishida, M., Takahashi, T. et al. Transcription of mcrA Gene Decreases Upon Prolonged Non-flooding Period in a Methanogenic Archaeal Community of a Paddy-Upland Rotational Field Soil. Microb Ecol 75, 751–760 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-017-1063-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-017-1063-2

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