Effect of long‐term organic and mineral fertilization strategies on rhizosphere microbiota assemblage and performance of lettuce

Abstract

SummaryLong‐term agricultural fertilization strategies gradually change soil properties including the associated microbial communities. Cultivated crops recruit beneficial microbes from the surrounding soil environment via root exudates. In this study, we aimed to investigate the effects of long‐term fertilization strategies across field sites on the rhizosphere prokaryotic (Bacteria and Archaea) community composition and plant performance. We conducted growth chamber experiments with lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) cultivated in soils from two long‐term field experiments, each of which compared organic versus mineral fertilization strategies. 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing revealed the assemblage of a rhizosphere core microbiota shared in all lettuce plants across soils, going beyond differences in community composition depending on field site and fertilization strategies. The enhanced expression of several plant genes with roles in oxidative and biotic stress signalling pathways in lettuce grown in soils with organic indicates an induced physiological status in plants. Lettuce plants grown in soils with different fertilization histories were visibly free of stress symptoms and achieved comparable biomass. This suggests a positive aboveground plant response to belowground plant–microbe interactions in the rhizosphere. Besides effects of fertilization strategy and field site, our results demonstrate the crucial role of the plant in driving rhizosphere microbiota assemblage.

Long-Term N Fertilization Decreased Diversity and Altered the Composition of Soil Bacterial and Archaeal Communities

“…The RA of candidate phylum Latescibacteria (WS3) was highest in unfertilized soils (0.98%). In contrast to our results, Latescibacteria sequences showed higher RA in fertilized agricultural soil samples from the Pampas region (4%) in comparison to pristine soil [9,52]. Both phyla have been shown to correlate positively to soil pH [16], thus the high N ratio might have indirectly reduced their RA by decreasing soil pH.…”

“…Modern approaches, using phylogenetic surveys of bacteria employing universal primers, allow for characterization and comparison of the microbial diversity in different soil environments as well as the comparative analysis of changes in community structure due to management practices [7,8]. Although numerous studies have examined the influence of N fertilizer on the soil microbiome [9][10][11][12], most of these studies compared responses to organic and inorganic fertilizers; only a few studies examined the response of the soil microbiome to increasing N fertilizer rates in an agroecosystem [11,[13][14][15][16][17].…”

Revisiting Plant–Microbe Interactions and Microbial Consortia Application for Enhancing Sustainable Agriculture: A Review

“…Numerous studies have shown that, besides the plant influence, long-term agricultural practices affect the assembly of the rhizosphere microbiota ( Chowdhury et al, 2019 ). It has been observed that recruitment of management process–specific taxa is favored by the plant hosts, which also helps in shifting the nutrient cycling in rhizospheric region ( Schmidt et al, 2019 ).…”

A rice variety with a high straw biomass retained nitrogen and phosphorus without affecting soil bacterial species

“…Before planting of the rice variety YD-1, the total soil N and P concentrations were as high as 2.81 mg g -1 and 0.41 mg g -1 , respectively. Generally, the contribution of crop varieties that affect the microbial community, which includes bacteria, is higher in low-fertile soils (Yao et al, 2018;Chowdhury et al, 2019).…”