The fungal feeding channel of the soil micro‐food web contributes to the transformation of exogenous C into soil C—A ¹³C labelling microcosm experiment

Abstract

Plant residue is an important carbon (C) source for soil communities that motivates underground C cycling. However, the effects of plant residue quantity on the structure of the soil micro‐food web and the transformation of exogenous C within the micro‐food web after increasing organic input are not known. Thus, a microcosm experiment was carried out to investigate the responses of soil micro‐food web (including microorganisms and nematodes) to different amounts of 13C‐labelled maize residue addition treatments [without residue addition, 1/3 (1/3R), 2/3 (2/3R) and total residue addition (R)]. The abundances of residue 13C in CO2 (13CO2), soil organic C (SO13C), microorganisms (13C‐microorganisms) and nematodes (13C‐nematodes) were determined after 1, 7, 35 and 84 days. Increasing organic input changed the micro‐food web composition and increased the amount of 13C‐bacteria, 13C‐fungi and 13C‐fungivores but not 13C‐bacterivores. The result of the 13C‐based network showed that bacterivores were positively correlated with omnivores‐predators at the early stage after increasing organic input, while fungivores were at the late stage. Greater 13CO2/SO13C but lower SO13C/total 13C input ratios were found in the R than in the 1/3R treatment at the early stage. At the late stage, the R treatment decreased both 13CO2/total 13C input and 13CO2/SO13C ratios. We concluded that increasing organic input strengthened the trophic interactions between microorganisms and nematodes. The transformation of exogenous C from bacteria to bacterivores might accelerate the turnover of soil C pool, however, the C flow from fungi to fungivores and then to omnivores‐predators could contribute to the exogenous C sequestration in soil.