Phosphorus (P) is an essential macronutrient for plant growth with important roles in photosynthesis, macromolecular biosynthesis, signal and energy transduction. Microorganisms play essential roles in soil phosphorus (P) cycling and the regulation of P bioavailability. However, genetic information on microbial P cycling in response to nutrient inputs is largely unclear.

In a study recently published in Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment, researchers from WANG Guanghua’s group at the Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Key Laboratory of Mollisols Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) revealed that long-term addition of chemical and organic fertilizers significantly changed soil microbial functional profiles of P cycling.

By metagenomics and genome binning methods, this study reported that manure amendments strongly affected microbial P cycle-related functional gene patterns, which were significantly and positively correlated with the contents of soil total P and available P. Manure fertilizations contributed to the accumulation of soil available P by direct input of liable P and indirect promotion microbial inorganic P-solubilization and organic P-mineralization, and inhibition of microbial P-uptake and transport. In contrast, addition of chemical fertilizer increased abundances of functional genes involved in microbial P-uptake and transport and P-starvation response regulation.

The phnC gene was significantly decreased under manure fertilizations across three locations and contained in all retrieved MAGs in this study. One bin affiliated with Sphingomicrobium was negatively correlated with soil AP and considered as a potential indicator in regulating soil microbial P-uptake and transport (Figure 1).

This study provides new insights that manure inputs positively accelerated microbial P-transformations, which was beneficial for the establishment of efficient P management strategies in sustainable-intensive agriculture.

The study was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDA28020201), Youth Innovation Promotion Association of Chinese Academy of Sciences (2023237) and Heilongjiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (ZD2022D001).

The finding of this study was recently published online in Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2023.108462.

Key words: Chemical and organic fertilization, Soil phosphorus cycling, Microbial functional genes, metagenome-assembled genomes, Mollisols

The full information of the article:

Hu X, Gu H, Liu J, Wei D, Zhu P, Cui X, Zhou B, Chen X, Jin J, Liu X, Wang G. Metagenomic strategies uncover the soil bioavailable phosphorus improved by organic fertilization in Mollisols. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment. 2023, 349, 108462.

Contact:

Prof. WANG Guanghua, Ph.D Principal Investigator

Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Key Laboratory of Mollisols Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Harbin 150081, China

E-mail: wanggh@iga.ac.cn