Acta Agriculturae Zhejiangensis ›› 2023, Vol. 35 ›› Issue (8): 1864-1875.DOI: 10.3969/j.issn.1004-1524.20221096

• Environmental Science • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Response of bacterial community to planting cover crops in virgin upland red soil

SI Linlin(), XU Jing, CAO Kai, ZHANG Xian, WANG Jianhong*()   

  1. Institute of Environment and Resource & Soil Fertilizer, Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hangzhou 310021, China
  • Received:2022-07-25 Online:2023-08-25 Published:2023-08-29

Abstract:

In the present assay, field experiments were conducted to investigate the effect of 3 treatments, i.e., non-planting (CK), planting bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L. var. humilis Alef), and planting sorghum-sudangrass hybrid (Sorghum bicolor × S. sudanense) on the bacterial community structure of virgin red soils under newly-cultivated upland, in Suichang County and Jingning She Autonomous County, Zhejiang Province, China, respectively. High-throughput sequencing technology was used to study the diversity and community structure of bacteria in soil. Moreover, the correlation within soil environmental factors and bacterial communities was analyzed. The results showed that significant (P<0.05) differences were observed in the soil microbial biomass carbon and nitrogen content after planting cover crops, and the effect of sorghum-sudangrass hybrid was better than that of bean. The diversity of bacterial communities did not alter significantly between the 2 types of cover crops. The predominant phyla were Proteobacteria, Chloroflexi, Actinobacteriota, Acidobacteriota, Planctomycetota, Myxococcota, and Verrucomicrobiota, of which the relative abundance accounted for over 84%. Planting cover crops decreased the qualities of distinct biomarkers, especially when planting beans. At the phylum level, beans dramatically increased the relative abundance of Bacteroidota in rhizosphere soils compared with the sorghum-sudangrass hybrid. Moreover, the relative abundance of Rhodanobacter and Dokdonella in bean rhizosphere soils was significantly (P<0.05) increased by 5-6 folds compared with the sorghum-sudangrass hybrid under the genus level. Redundancy analysis and correlation analysis revealed that pH, available potassium content, and soil microbial biomass carbon content were the main environmental factors affecting the distribution of soil bacterial phyla, such as Patescibacteria, Bacteroidota, Actinobacteriota, Gemmatimonadota, Firmicutes, Myxococcota, Chloroflexi, Proteobacteria. Overall, planting cover crops on virgin upland red soils could improve soil environmental conditions and promote soil bacterial communities participating in soil nutrient cycling.

Key words: cover crops, red soil, upland, virgin soil, soil bacteria, community structure

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