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Exploring the potential of microcalorimetry to study soil microbial metabolic diversity

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Abstract

Microcalorimetry and BIOLOG are common tools in the study of soil microbial metabolism. When used combined, they may reveal further details about soil microbial metabolic diversity than individually. Through this study, we demonstrated the advantages of such a combinatorial methodology by comparing soil samples from two locations in China, each with (OM samples) and without (control) organic fertilization. We used BIOLOG and microcalorimetry to study soil microbes’ ability to metabolize different C substrates. Microcalorimetric measurements helped us further reveal the differences in the microbial growth kinetics under different BIOLOG-identified C substrates. Results showed that soils differed in the preferred C substrates, as denoted by the thermodynamic parameters. Some C substrates stimulated the active microbial biomass, while some stimulated microbial growth rate. Most interestingly, certain C substrates (e.g., l-arginine for Shandong soil and glycogen for Henan soil) showed stimulating effects on both OM and control soils, which could be attributed to the pH value and P availability in soil. Hence, we believe microcalorimetry could be potentially used to explore the soil microbial metabolic diversity by combining BIOLOG measurement, especially in determining how microbes assimilate different nutrient sources.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported jointly by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants Nos. 41501264, 41271256 and 41371253), Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20140991), CAS Strategic Priority Research Program Grant (XDB15020103 and XDB15010103), the Research Fund of State Key Laboratory of Soil and Sustainable Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Science (Y412201441), and Startup Foundation for Advanced Talents of Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology (NUIST) and the foundation from China Scholarship Council. It was also developed in collaboration with the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) by the project of Xunta de Galicia (10PXIB291027PR).

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. International Center for Ecology, Meteorology and Environment (IceMe), School of Applied Meteorology, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China

      Jiangbing Xu

    2. State Key Laboratory of Soil and Sustainable Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, 210008, China

      Youzhi Feng, Ruirui Chen & Xiangui Lin

    3. Department of Applied Physics, Santiago de Compostela University, 15782, Santiago de Compostela, Spain

      Nieves Barros

    4. Pennsylvania State University at Mont Alto, 1 Campus Drive, Mont Alto, PA, 17237, USA

      Linghao Zhong

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    1. Jiangbing Xu
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    2. Youzhi Feng
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    Correspondence to Xiangui Lin.

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    Jiangbing Xu and Youzhi Feng authors have contributed equally to this work.

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    Xu, J., Feng, Y., Barros, N. et al. Exploring the potential of microcalorimetry to study soil microbial metabolic diversity. J Therm Anal Calorim 127, 1457–1465 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10973-016-5952-2

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    • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10973-016-5952-2

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