Advertisement

Conversion of grassland into cropland affects microbial residue carbon retention in both surface and subsurface soils of a temperate agroecosystem

  • Xueli DingEmail author
  • Bin Zhang
  • Zhanbo Wei
  • Hongbo He
  • Timothy R. Filley
Short Communication
First Online:
  • 201 Downloads

Abstract

We evaluated how microbial residues and their contributions to soil carbon (C) stocks changed with long-term (50 years) conversion of native grassland to cropland in the profiles (0–15, 15–30, 30–60, 60–90 cm) of chernozem. The conversion of grassland into arable land led to substantial depletion of microbial residues down to 90-cm depth, indicating the potential vulnerability of the microbial-derived C due to land-use change. Moreover, losses of microbial residue C at depths below 30 cm were much higher than that of total soil C after several decades’ cultivation. This demonstrated that the decline of total soil C pool after grassland conversion was selectively removing microbial residue C. Lower ratio of fungal to bacterial residue C after grassland conversion suggested a shift in the composition of microbial residue C, with potential consequences for changes in soil C quality and stock associated with land cultivation. Collectively, our findings foster the importance of microbial-derived organic C for soil C stock maintenance and emphasize the necessity to take subsurface soils into account when evaluating the role of microbial-derived C to soil C losses under land-use change.

Keywords

Land use Soil depth Fungal C Bacterial C Soil C stock 
This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

Notes

Funding information

This work was financially supported by the Startup Foundation for Introducing Talent of NUIST (2018r100, 2018r101) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41371295).

Compliance with ethical standards

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Supplementary material

374_2019_1400_MOESM1_ESM.xls (24 kb)
ESM 1 (XLS 24 kb)

References

  1. Amelung W, Lobe I, Du Preez CC (2002) Fate of microbial residues in sandy soils of South African Highveld as influenced by prolonged arable cropping. Eur J Soil Sci 53:29–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  2. Appuhn A, Joergensen RG (2006) Microbial colonisation of roots as a function of plant species. Soil Biol Biochem 38:1040–1051CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  3. Batjes NH (1996) Total carbon and nitrogen in the soils of the world. Eur J Soil Sci 47:151–163CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  4. Börjesson G, Bolinder MA, Kirchmann H, Kätterer T (2018) Organic carbon stocks in topsoil and subsoil in long-term ley and cereal monoculture rotations. Biol Fertil Soils 54:549–558CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  5. Ding X, Qiao Y, Filley T, Wang H, Lü X, Zhang B, Wang J (2017a) Long-term changes in land use impact the accumulation of microbial residues in the particle-size fractions of a Mollisol. Biol Fertil Soils 53:281–286CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  6. Ding X, Zhang B, Filley TR, Tian C, Zhang X, He H (2019) Changes of microbial residues after wetland cultivation and restoration. Biol Fertil Soils 55:405–409CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  7. Ding X, Zhang B, Lü X, Wang J, Horwath WR (2017b) Parent material and conifer biome influence microbial residue accumulation in forest soils. Soil Biol Biochem 107:1–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  8. Denef K, Six J, Bossuyt H, Frey SD, Elliott ET, Merckx R, Paustian K (2001) Influence of dry-wet cycles on the interrelationship between aggregate, particulate organic matter, and microbial community dynamics. Soil Biol Biochem 33:1599–1611CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  9. Don A, Schumacher J, Freibauer A (2011) Impact of tropical land-use change on soil organic carbon stocks: a meta-analysis. Glob Chang Biol 17:1658–1670CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  10. Don A, Böhme IH, Dohrmann AB, Poeplau C, Tebbe CC (2017) Microbial community composition affects soil organic carbon turnover in mineral soils. Biol Fertil Soils 53:445–456CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  11. Eilers KG, Debenport S, Anderson S, Fierer N (2012) Digging deeper to find unique microbial communities: the strong effect of depth on the structure of bacterial and archaeal communities in soil. Soil Biol Biochem 50:58–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  12. Ellert BH, Bettany JR (1995) Calculation of organic matter and nutrients stored in soils under contrasting management regimes. Can J Soil Sci 75:529–538CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  13. Engelking B, Flessa H, Joergensen RG (2007) Shifts in amino sugar and ergosterol contents after addition of sucrose and cellulose to soil. Soil Biol Biochem 39:2111–2118CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  14. Eudy LW, Walla MD, Morgan SL, Fox A (1985) Gas chromatographic-mass spectrometric determination of muramic acid content and pyrolysis profiles for a group of gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. The Analyst 110(4):381–385Google Scholar
  15. Finn D, Kopittke PM, Dennis PG, Dalal RC (2017) Microbial energy and matter transformation in agricultural soils. Soil Biol Biochem 111:176–192CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  16. Guan ZH, Li XG, Wang L, Mou XH, Kuzyakov Y (2018) Conversion of Tibetan grasslands to croplands decreases accumulation of microbially synthesized compounds in soil. Soil Biol Biochem 123:10–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  17. He H, Zhang W, Zhang X, Xie H, Zhuang J (2011) Temporal responses of soil microorganisms to substrate addition as indicated by amino sugar differentiation. Soil Biol Biochem 43:1155–1161CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  18. Indorf C, Dyckmans J, Joergensen RG (2015) Short-term changes in amino sugar-specific δ13C values after application of C4 and C3 sucrose. Soil Biol Biochem 91:92–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  19. IUSS Working Group WRB (2014) World Reference Base for Soil Resources 2014. International soil classification system for naming soils and creating legends for soil maps. World Soil Resources Reports No. 106. FAO, RomeGoogle Scholar
  20. Joergensen RG (2018) Amino sugars as specific indices for fungal and bacterial residues in soil. Biol Fertil Soils 54:559–568CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  21. Kaiser K, Guggenberger G, Haumaier L (2004) Changes in dissolved lignin-derived phenols, neutral sugars, uronic acids, and amino sugars with depth in forested Haplic Arenosols and Rendzic Leptosols. Biogeochemistry 70:135–151CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  22. Lal R (2018) Digging deeper: a holistic perspective of factors affecting soil organic carbon sequestration in agroecosystems. Glob Chang Biol 24:3285–3301CrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  23. Lavahun MFE, Joergensen RG, Meyer B (1996) Activity and biomass of soil microorganisms at different depths. Biol Fertil Soils 23:38–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  24. Liang C, Gutknecht JLM, Balser TC (2015) Microbial lipid and amino sugar responses to long-term simulated global environmental changes in a California annual grassland. Front Microbiol 6:385CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentralGoogle Scholar
  25. Liang C, Kao-Kniffin J, Sanford GR, Wickings K, Balser TC, Jackson RD (2016) Microorganisms and their residues under restored perennial grassland communities of varying diversity. Soil Biol Biochem 103:192–200CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  26. Liang C, Schimel JP, Jastrow JD (2017) The importance of anabolism in microbial control over soil carbon storage. Nat Microbio 2:17105CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  27. Liu X, Hu G, He H, Liang C, Zhang W, Bai Z, Wu Y, Lin G, Zhang X (2016) Linking microbial immobilization of fertilizer nitrogen to in situ turnover of soil microbial residues in an agro-ecosystem. Agric Ecosyst Environ 229:40–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  28. Miltner A, Bombach P, Schmidt-Brücken B, Kästner M (2012) SOM genesis: microbial biomass as a significant source. Biogeochemistry 111:41–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  29. Moritz LK, Liang C, Wagai R, Kitayama K, Balser TC (2009) Vertical distribution and pools of microbial residues in tropical forest soils formed from distinct parent materials. Biogeochemistry 92:83–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  30. Rasse DP, Rumpel C, Dignac MF (2005) Is soil carbon mostly root carbon? Mechanisms for a specific stabilisation. Plant Soil 269:341–356CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  31. Rumpel C, Kögel-Knabner I (2011) Deep soil organic matter-a key but poorly understood component of terrestrial C cycle. Plant Soil 338:143–158CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  32. Schimel J, Schaeffer SM (2012) Microbial control over carbon cycling in soil. Front Microbiol 3:348CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentralGoogle Scholar
  33. Shahbaz M, Kuzyakov Y, Sanaullah M, Heitkamp F, Zelenev V, Kumar A, Blagodatskaya E (2017) Microbial decomposition of soil organic matter is mediated by quality and quantity of crop residues: mechanisms and thresholds. Biol Fertil Soils 53:287–301CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  34. Simpson AJ, Simpson MJ, Smith E, Kelleher BP (2007) Microbially derived inputs to soil organic matter: are current estimates too low? Environ Sci Technol 41:8070–8076CrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  35. Sradnick A, Oltmanns M, Raupp J, Joergensen RG (2014) Microbial residue indices down the soil profile after long-term addition of farmyard manure and mineral fertilizer to a sandy soil. Geoderma 226–227:79–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  36. Struecker J, Joergensen RG (2015) Microorganisms and their substrate utilization patterns in topsoil and subsoil layers of two silt loams, differing in soil organic C accumulation due to colluvial processes. Soil Biol Biochem 91:310–317CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  37. Zhang X, Amelung W (1996) Gas chromatographic determination of muramic acid, glucosamine mannosamine, and galactosamine in soils. Soil Biol Biochem 28:1201–1206CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  38. Zhang X, Amelung W, Yuan Y, Samson-Liebig S, Brown L, Zech W (1999) Land-use effects on amino sugars in particle size fractions of an Argiudoll. Appl Soil Ecol 11:271–275CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  39. Zheng Q, Hu Y, Zhang S, Noll L, Böckle T, Richter A, Wanek W (2019) Growth explains microbial carbon use efficiency across soils differing in land use and geology. Soil Biol Biochem 128:45–55CrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar

Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019

Authors and Affiliations

  • Xueli Ding
    • 1
    Email author
  • Bin Zhang
    • 1
  • Zhanbo Wei
    • 2
  • Hongbo He
    • 2
  • Timothy R. Filley
    • 3
  1. 1.School of Applied MeteorologyNanjing University of Information Science & TechnologyNanjingChina
  2. 2.Institute of Applied EcologyChinese Academy of SciencesShenyangChina
  3. 3.Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary SciencesPurdue UniversityWest LafayetteUSA

Personalised recommendations

Cite article

Buy options