Aims: The short-term effects of different organic manure nitrogen (N) input on soil ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) and bacterial (AOB) activity and community structure at maturity stages of early rice and late rice were investigated in the present paper, in a double-cropping rice system in southern China.
Methods and results: A field experiment was done by applying five different organic and inorganic N input treatments: (i) 100% N of chemical fertilizer (M0), (ii) 30% N of organic manure and 70% N of chemical fertilizer (M30), (iii) 50% N of organic manure and 50% N of chemical fertilizer (M50), (iv) 100% N of organic manure (M100) and (v) without N fertilizer input as control (CK). Microbial community changes were assessed using fatty acid methyl esters, and ammonia oxidizer (AO) changes were followed using quantitative PCR. The results showed that AOA were higher than that of AOB based upon amoA gene copy at maturity stages of early rice and late rice. Also, the abundance of AOB and AOA with M30, M50 and M100 treatments was significantly higher than that of CK treatment. Manure N input treatments had significant effect on AOB and AOA abundance, and a higher correlation between AOB and manure N input was observed. AOB correlated moderately with soil organic carbon content, and AOA correlated moderately with water-filled pore space.
Conclusions: This study found that abundance of AOB and AOA was increased under the given organic N conditions, and the soil AOB and AOA community and diversity were changed by different short-term organic manure N input treatments.
Significance and impact of the study: Soil microbial community and specific N-utilizing microbial groups were affected by organic manure N input practices.
Keywords: ammonia-oxidizing archaea; ammonia-oxidizing bacteria; fertilizer management; organic manure; rice.
© 2020 The Society for Applied Microbiology.