Experimental evidence of soil bacteria abundance as the primary driver of rhizosphere priming effect

ZHANG ZIJIA; JOHNSTON ERIC R.; SU TONGQING; HAN XINGGUO; MA YIPING; BUSSO CARLOS ALBERTO; ZHANG XIMEI

PHYTON - INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL BOTANY BA ARGENTINA

FUNDACION ROMULO RAGGIO

Lugar: Buenos Aires; Año: 2018 vol. 87 p. 286 - 291

0031-9457

Soil microbial communities are thougth to be responsible for the rhizosphere priming effect (RPE). However, because soil microbial communities are comprised of diverse components, very little is known about which component plays the critical role. Here, soybean and cottonwood were grown at two latitudinal locations with different temperature and light conditions in-situ. We quantified RPE using a natural 13C method, and measured the abundance, richness and composition of bacteria and fungi communities with DNA-based molecular methods. Among all potential variables, including the three aforementioned indexes of bacteria and fungi communities and soil physiochemical and plant indexes, bacterial abundance was found to explain a large proportion of variation in RPE. Our study identified the biological mechanism underlying this important ecological process.