Soil management practices have the potential to modify the diversity and function of microbes in agricultural fields. The aim of this study was to investigate bacterial and fungal diversity in a 15 yr wheat–pea rotation tillage experiment. The treatments included conventional tillage with stubble removed, no-till with stubble removed, no-till with stubble retained (NTS), and conventional tillage with stubble incorporated. Illumina high-throughput sequencing platform was employed to sequence bacteria 16S rRNA (V3V4) and fungi internal transcribed spacer (ITS2) region genes in 0–10 cm and 10–30 cm of soil sampled. The dominant bacterial and fungal phyla identified at 97% similarity cutoff across both depths of treatments were Proteobacteria (26.3%), Actinobacteria (25.1%), Acidobacteria (15.0%), Gemmatimonadetes (8.8%), Ascomycota (85.8%), and Basidiomycota (8.0%). NTS had significantly (p < 0.05) higher microbial diversity indices, total organic carbon, soil microbial biomass carbon and nitrogen, NO3-N, and NH4-N at 0–10 cm depth. Tillage and stubble effects had a significant correlation with some phyla such as Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Gemmatimonadetes, JL-ETNP-Z39, Nitrospirae, Chloroflexi, Firmicutes, and other identified and unidentified minor microbial phyla. No-till and residue retention practices influenced fungal and bacterial species diversity through improved soil chemical properties, which have potential to affect the habitat and activity of soil microbes. Therefore, no-till and stubble retention could improve soil quality and promote sustainable agriculture in the rainfed Loess Plateau.
Soil borne archaea in agricultural systems is crucial for cycling of nutrient such as Nitrogen, Carbon and Sulphur. The objective of the study was to assess the effect of different tillage systems on functional archaea diversity in a 15 years cereal-legume rotation field using Illumina sequencing platform for archaea 16S rRNA gene. The treatments in the study included conventional tillage with stubble removed (T), no-till with stubble removed (NT), conventional tillage with stubble incorporated (TS) and no-till with stubble retained (NTS). The results showed that the dominant soil archaea phyla was Crenarchaeota (> 96%), followed by Euryarchaeota with a lower abundance of < 3% and then Parvarchaeota and other bacteria phyla made up < 1% across the treatments and depths. The treatment means were ranked as NT > NTS > TS > T for 16S rRNA number of OTUs, Shannon and Simpson indices calculated for the 0-10cm soil depth. Analysis of factor effect revealed that tillage but not stubble retention or their interaction significantly influenced (P < 0.01 and P < 0.05) 16S rRNA diversity. Non metric Multidimensional Scaling (NMDS) analysis clearly grouped the microbial communities according to depths. Linear Discriminant Analysis Effect Size (LEfSe) identified Crenarchaeota and Thaumarchaeota (to genus level) as significantly enriched clades in 0-10 cm depth of T while Euryarchaeota and Thermoplasmata were significantly enriched in TS. The conservational tillage systems (NT and NTS) promoted even distribution of archaea diversity while conventional tillage systems (T and TS) enriched the archaea communities identified in the study.
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