Dynamic variation of bacterial community assemblage and functional profiles during rice straw degradation

Ruibo Sun; Xin Wang; Yousef Alhaj Hamoud; Mengxing Lu; Hiba Shaghaleh; Wenjie Zhang; Chaochun Zhang; Chao Ma

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2023.1173442

Dynamic variation of bacterial community assemblage and functional profiles during rice straw degradation

Front Microbiol. 2023 Apr 14:14:1173442. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2023.1173442. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Ruibo Sun^{1

2}, Xin Wang^{1

2}, Yousef Alhaj Hamoud³, Mengxing Lu^{1

2}, Hiba Shaghaleh⁴, Wenjie Zhang^{1

2}, Chaochun Zhang^{1

2

5}, Chao Ma^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Farmland Ecological Conservation and Pollution Prevention, Research Centre of Phosphorus Efficient Utilization and Water Environment Protection Along the Yangtze River Economic Belt, College of Resources and Environment, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei, China.
² Key Laboratory of JiangHuai Arable Land Resources Protection and Eco-restoration, Ministry of Natural Resources, Hefei, China.
³ College of Hydrology and Water Resources, Hohai University, Nanjing, China.
⁴ College of Environment, Hohai University, Nanjing, China.
⁵ College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, National Academy of Agriculture Green Development, Key Laboratory of Plant-Soil Interactions, Ministry of Education, College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China.

Abstract

Bacteria is one of the most important drivers of straw degradation. However, the changes in bacterial community assemblage and straw-decomposing profiles during straw decomposition are not well understood. Based on cultivation-dependent and independent technologies, this study revealed that the "common species" greatly contributed to the dynamic variation of bacterial community during straw decomposition. Twenty-three functional strains involved in straw decomposition were isolated, but only seven were detected in the high-throughput sequencing data. The straw decomposers, including the isolated strains and the agents determined by functional prediction, constituted only 0.024% (on average) of the total bacterial community. The ecological network showed that most of the identified decomposers were self-existent without associations with other species. These results showed that during straw composition, community assembly might be greatly determined by the majority, but straw decomposition functions might be largely determined by the minority and emphasized the importance of the rare species in community-specific functions.

Keywords: bacterial community assembly; cellulose-decomposing bacteria; lignocellulosic decomposing bacteria; microbial interaction; straw degradation; straw returning.