Alteration and resilience of the soil microbial community following compost amendment: effects of compost level and compost‐borne microbial community

Abstract

Compost amendment has been reported to impact soil microbial activities or community composition. However, little information is available on (i) to what extent compost amendment concurrently affects the activity, size and composition of soil microbial community, (ii) the relative effect of the addition of a material rich in organic matter versus addition of compost-borne microorganisms in explaining the effects of amendment and (iii) the resilience of community characteristics. We compared five treatments in microcosms: (i) control soil (S), (ii) soil + low level of compost (Sc), (iii) soil + high level of compost (SC), (iv) sterilized soil + high level of compost [(S)C] and (v) soil + high level of sterilized compost [S(C)]. The actual C mineralization rate, substrate-induced respiration, size of microbial community (biomass and heterotrophic cells number), and structure of total microbial (phospholipid fatty acids) and bacterial (automated ribosomal intergenic spacer analysis, A-RISA) communities were surveyed during 6 months after amendment. Our results show that (i) compost amendment affected the activity, size and composition of the soil microbial community, (ii) the effect of compost amendment was mainly due to the physicochemical characteristics of compost matrix rather than to compost-borne microorganisms and (iii) no resilience of microbial characteristics was observed 6-12 months after amendment with a high amount of compost.

Understanding and Enhancing Soil Biological Health: The Solution for Reversing Soil Degradation

“…Recent studies using molecular techniques have identified detectable changes within Proteobacteria, Acidobacteria and Bacteroidetes with the use of organic amendments [174,175]. Another recent study suggested that compost effects were mainly caused by physicochemical characteristics of the compost matrix rather than by compost-borne microorganisms and that there was no resilience of microbial characteristics during the study (6-12 months) after applying a high amount of compost [176]. However, a comprehensive meta-analysis showed that organic amendments routinely increased soil microbial biomass in agricultural soils [177].…”

Compost amendment enhances population and composition of phosphate solubilizing bacteria and improves phosphorus availability in granitic regosols

“…Compost is a microbiologically active product characterized by a particular endogenous microflora (Saison et al 2006). The techniques of molecular biology offer new opportunities for analyzing changes in soil microbial communities (Dilly et al 2004).…”

Humusica 2, article 16: Techno humus systems and recycling of waste

“…It is possible to accelerate the process of biodegradation, mix thus formed horizons, adding new material, aerating the pile and destroying/orienting/modifying a natural system in formation. With these operations, farmers and gardeners purposely interfere with the natural process of organic matter decomposition and transform natural humus systems into Techno humus systems (Mustin, 1987;Culot and Lebeau, 1999;Tuomela et al, 2000;Ouédraogo et al, 2001;Fontaine et al, 2003;Annabi et al, 2005;Ros et al, 2006;Saison et al, 2006;Evanylo et al, 2008;Adani et al, 2009;Lowenfels and Lewis, 2010;Brown and Cotton, 2011;Zhao et al, 2013;Lowenfels, 2014;Gerbier, 2015;Kuzyakov and Blagodatskaya, 2015;Lowenfels, 2017).…”