Soil Nutrients Drive Function and Composition of phoC-Harboring Bacterial Community in Acidic Soils of Southern China

Abstract

Phosphorus (P) deficiency is an important factor that limits the agricultural production potential in acidic soils. The bacterial phoC gene encodes non-specific acid phosphatase (ACP), which participates in the mineralization of soil organic P and is therefore important for the improvement of soil P availability. However, the function and community population of phoC-harboring bacteria and their driving factors in acidic soil remain largely unknown. For this study, 51 soil samples and 207 plant samples were collected from four locations in the acidic soil region of southern China. Quantitative PCR and high-throughput sequencing were employed to analyze abundance and community composition of phoC-harboring bacteria. The results showed that soil P availability was the important nutrient element limiting the growth of both plants and soil bacteria. Soil ACP activity was clearly higher than alkaline phosphatase, indicating the important effect of phoC-harboring bacteria in acidic soils. ACP activity and phoC gene abundance showed a significant positive correlation, and both were closely related to soil available P, total carbon, and total nitrogen. The dominant genera of phoC-harboring bacteria involved Cupriavidus, Stenotrophomonas, and Xanthomonas. Compared to land-use pattern, sampling location, and soil parent material, soil property played a more important role in affecting phoC-harboring bacterial community structure, where N-related variables including soil NO3- -N, NH4+ -N, and C/N ratio appeared to be the main factors. These findings suggest that phoC-harboring bacteria should provide an important contribution to soil P availability in acidic soil, and its function and community composition were strongly associated with soil nutrients.

Response of soil environment factors and microbial communities to phytoremediation with Robinia pseudoacacia in an open‐cut magnesite mine

“…It is widely recognized that soil pH has strong correlations with soil bacterial diversity (Li et al, ; Zhou, Guo, Chen, & Jia, ), which is the main driver of bacterial community diversity (Wei et al, ), and consistent results were also obtained in our study (Figure a; Table ). Furthermore, present study showed that soil bacterial community diversity existed positive correlations with soil nutrients, including total C, total N, total P, available P, available N, available K, and soluble Ca 2+ , which were similar with previous findings (Deng et al, ; Wang et al, ; Wei et al, ; Zheng, Wang, Li, Song, & Shen, ). It's worth mentioning that numerous studies have indicated the correlations between soil factors and fungal community diversity, such as soil pH (Zhang et al, ), P content (Burke, Carrino‐Kyker, & Burns, ), and C/N (Yang, Cheng, Dou, & An, ); however, no similar observations were obtained in present study.…”

Soil microbial communities influencing organic phosphorus mineralization in a coastal dune chronosequence in New Zealand

“…total P) and stoichiometry (e.g. C:N, C:P, N:P) were found to be predictors of community diversity and composition or abundance of class A acid phosphatase communities (Luo et al 2019;Zheng et al 2019;Gaiero et al 2020). phoDharbouring communities may also respond uniquely to resource limitations and available P resources (Jorquera et al 2014;Margalef et al 2017;Gaiero et al 2020).…”

Secretion of Gluconic Acid From Nguyenibacter sp. L1 Is Responsible for Solubilization of Aluminum Phosphate

“…Soil adhering to the roots of L. bicolor was shaken off and placed in plastic bags. The soil samples were stored at 4 • C. To measure rhizosphere soil pH, we used a pH meter (Mettler Toledo FE20, Shanghai, China) to analyze a soil-water suspension (soil: water, 1: 2.5) after shaking (Zheng et al, 2019). Available P was extracted by the ammonium fluoride method and analyzed by the molybdate blue method (Murphy and Riley, 1962).…”