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Incorporation of urea-derived 13C into microbial communities in four different agriculture soils

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Abstract

The objective of this study was to investigate changes in the composition of the soil microbial community brought about by urea application and differences in the incorporation of urea-derived C into the soil phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) pool at differing soil pH. We selected four soils which ranged in pH from 3.9 to 7.8. 13C-labeled urea was applied at two concentrations 100 and 200 mg N kg−1 which represents commonly used and high levels of application. Significant hydrolysis of applied urea occurred within 2 h; less than 2 % of urea-C was retained in the soil with one exception, the fluvo-aquic soil at pH 7.8 amended with 200 mg kg−1 urea-N 3 days after urea application. According to principal component analysis (PCA), the effect of urea and incubation time on microbial community composition was far weaker than differences between the four soils due to their large differences in basic properties; the scores of PC2 were significantly correlated with pH values. The incorporation of 13C-urea to PLFAs increased with soil pH; this may be related to increases in the speciation of inorganic C into bicarbonate.13C label was primarily incorporated into 16:1ω5c, 16:0, and cy19:0 in red soil, pH 3.9; and into 16:1ω7c, 16:0, and 16:1ω5c in fluvo-aquic soil, pH 7.8. A wider range of PLFAs became labeled in the two paddy soils at pH 5.2 and 6.7. This suggests that the profile of PLFAs labeled from the application of 13C-urea may be affected by redox potential.

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Acknowledgments

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 41090283 and 31071869). The James Hutton Institute receives funding from the Scottish Government. We thank Prof. Yongguan Zhu for providing paddy soils and fluvo-aquic soil and Dr. Shen Yu for providing PLFA extraction equipment. We thank the anonymous reviewers whose comments helped improve the manuscript from the original version.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Resource Science, College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China

    Juan Wang & Huaiying Yao

  2. Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen, 361021, China

    Juan Wang & Huaiying Yao

  3. The James Hutton Institute, Craigiebuckler, Aberdeen, AB15 8QH, UK

    Barry Thornton

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  1. Juan Wang
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Correspondence to Huaiying Yao.

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Wang, J., Thornton, B. & Yao, H. Incorporation of urea-derived 13C into microbial communities in four different agriculture soils. Biol Fertil Soils 50, 603–612 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00374-013-0881-8

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