Abstract
Purpose
Understanding the relationships between soil respiration activity (SRA) and soil microbial community abundance and composition is pivotal for soil respiration prediction, modelling and management. This study aimed to assess value of the bacterial 16S ribosomal DNA (rDNA)- or ribosomal RNA (rRNA)-related indices (BRIs) in relation to SRA.
Materials and methods
Soil samples collected from a Tibetan alpine meadow were amended with different amounts of glutamate to establish a SRA gradient. Several BRIs including 16S rDNA copies, rRNA copies, the ratio of 16S rRNA copies to 16S rDNA copies and 16S rDNA- or rRNA-based community structure were analysed using real-time PCR or terminal-restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP).
Results and discussion
Except 16S rRNA copies and the ratio of 16S rRNA copies to 16S rDNA copies, all of the BRIs significantly correlated with the SRA. However, the 16S rRNA-based bacterial community structure explained 72.7 % of the SRA variations, which clearly outperformed all other BRIs.
Conclusions
The results imply that the 16S rRNA-based bacterial community structure provides a sensitive and robust BRI to support future studies on the relationships between SRA and microbial communities.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program (B) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB15010201), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant No. 41230750) and the National Basic Research Program (2013CB956000). We sincerely thank Ruicheng Li and the Haibei research station staff for sampling assistance.
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Che, R., Deng, Y., Wang, F. et al. 16S rRNA-based bacterial community structure is a sensitive indicator of soil respiration activity. J Soils Sediments 15, 1987–1990 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-015-1152-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-015-1152-0