System Maintenance Notice

Please note that maintenance work is scheduled between 4 AM and 5 AM - CET. During this time, you may experience reduced performance. Thanks for your patience.

Publications

Journal Article Ppublish

PubMed: 42666020 DOI: 10.1111/gcb.71083

Decadal Resampling Reveals Widespread Increases in Soil Microbial Diversity Associated With Nitrogen Deposition.

Glob Chang Biol 32(9):e71083

Authors: Yi Fan, Yiheng Tao, Bin Hua, Paul Kardol, Yakov Kuzyakov, Shuang Pang, Yi Wu, Tingling Li, Wei Yang, Honghui Wu, Anton A Goncharov, Anastasia Yu Korotkevich, Rong Mao, Yang Zhang, Ximei Zhang

Affiliations

  • Experimental Centre of Forestry in North China, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, China. Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development in Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China.
  • College of Land and Environment, Shenyang Agricultural University, Shenyang, China.
  • College of Forestry, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou, China.
  • Department of Forest Mycology and Plant Pathology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden.
  • Department of Soil Science of Temperate Ecosystems, University of Goettingen, Göttingen, Germany.
  • Peoples Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University), Moscow, Russia.
  • Experimental Centre of Forestry in North China, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, China.
  • Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development in Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China.
  • Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development in Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China. State Key Laboratory of Efficient Utilization of Agricultural Water Resources, CAU/CAAS, Beijing, China.
  • State Key Laboratory of Efficient Utilization of Arid and Semi-Arid Arable Land in Northern China, Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China.
  • Key Laboratory of Arable Land Quality Monitoring and Evaluation, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China.
  • A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia.
  • College of Forestry, Jiangxi Agricultural University, Nanchang, China.
  • Experimental Centre of Forestry in North China, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, China. Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development in Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China. College of Forestry, Jiangxi Agricultural University, Nanchang, China.

Abstract

Simulated manipulation experiments, such as nitrogen addition to mimic atmospheric nitrogen deposition, are widely used in global change research. However, experimental manipulations may differ from real-world environmental change in their intensity, duration, and co-occurrence, leaving long-term changes in soil microbial communities and soil health insufficiently understood. To address this gap, we resampled soils from 38 forest and grassland ecosystems across eastern China in 2009 and 2019 and assessed microbial taxonomic and functional diversity using shotgun metagenomics. Microbial diversity increased by 17% over the decade, accompanied by clear shifts in community composition. Among the environmental variables considered, nitrogen deposition (~19 kg nitrogen ha -1 year -1 across ecosystems) was the strongest predictor of changes in seven of 12 microbial community metrics. Larger nitrogen deposition was also associated with increased relative abundances of nitrogen-cycling genes and reduced spatial turnover in microbial community composition. These effects were consistent with a potential alleviation of nitrogen limitation and weakening of deterministic community assembly, although these mechanisms could not be directly established. In addition, increases in genes associated with carbon degradation and phosphorus cycling, together with declines in the relative abundances of pathogens, antibiotic resistance genes, and DNA viruses, coincided with the raise of the composite soil health index. Our findings demonstrate widespread decadal increases in soil microbial diversity and soil health across eastern China, with nitrogen deposition emerging as their strongest environmental factor. These results highlight that microbial responses to long-term ambient environmental change can differ markedly from responses inferred from short-term or high-intensity manipulation experiments.

MeSH

Genes, Soil, Ecosystem, Metagenomics, Microbiota