Fertilizing-induced alterations of microbial functional profiles in soil nitrogen cycling closely associate with crop yield

Abstract

Fertilization and rhizosphere selection are key regulators for soil nitrogen (N) cycling and microbiome. Thus, clarifying how the overall N cycling processes and soil microbiome respond to these factors is a prerequisite for understanding the consequences of high inputs of fertilizers, enhancing crop yields, and formulating reasonable nitrogen management strategies under agricultural intensification scenarios. To do this, we applied shotgun metagenomics sequencing to reconstruct N cycling pathways on the basis of abundance and distribution of related gene families, as well as explored the microbial diversity and interaction via high throughput sequencing based on a two-decade fertilization experiment in Loess Plateau of China semiarid area. We found that bacteria and fungi respond divergent to fertilization regimes and rhizosphere selection, in terms of community diversity, niche breadth, and microbial co-occurrence networks. Moreover, organic fertilization decreased the complexity of bacterial networks but increased the complexity and stability of fungal networks. Most importantly, rhizosphere selection exerted more strongly influences on the soil overall nitrogen cycling than the application of fertilizers, accompanied by the increase in the abundance of nifH, NIT-6, and narI genes and the decrease in the abundance of amoC, norC, and gdhA genes in the rhizosphere soil. Furthermore, keystone families screening from soil microbiome (e.g., Sphingomonadaceae, Sporichthyaceae, and Mortierellaceae), which were affected by the edaphic variables, contributed greatly to crop yield. Collectively, our findings emphasize the pivotal roles of rhizosphere selection interacting with fertilization regimes in sustaining soil nitrogen cycling processes in response to decades-long fertilization, as well as the potential importance of keystone taxa in maintaining crop yield. These findings significantly facilitate our understanding of nitrogen cycling in diverse agricultural soils and lay a foundation for manipulating specific microorganisms to regulate N cycling and promote agroecosystem sustainability.

Keywords: Co-occurrence patterns; Crop yield; Fertilization regimes; Microbial community; Microbial nitrogen-cycling processes; Rhizosphere selection.