IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0044203.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Soil Fertilization Leads to a Decline in Between-Samples Variability of Microbial Community δ13C Profiles in a Grassland Fertilization Experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Stavros D Veresoglou
  • Barry Thornton
  • George Menexes
  • Andreas P Mamolos
  • Demetrios S Veresoglou

Abstract

Gas chromatography combustion isotope ratio mass spectrometry (GC-C-IRMS) was used to measure the 13C/12C ratios of PLFAs at natural abundance levels from a temperate grassland nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) factorial fertilization experiment in northern Greece. In each plot two rhizosphere samples were derived centred around individual Agrostis capillaris and Prunella vulgaris plants. It was hypothesized that the isotopic signal of microbes that preferentially feed on recalcitrant litter such as fungi would be modified by fertilization more strongly than that of opportunistic microbes using labile C. Microbial community δ13C was affected by both P and N fertilization regime and plant species identity. However, we have been unable to detect significant nutrient effects on individual groups of microbes when analyzed separately in contrast to our original hypothesis. Intra-treatment variability, as evaluated from Hartley’s Fmax tests in the five first PCA components axes as well as the size of the convex hulls in PCA scoreplots and Mahalanobis distances, was considerably higher in the non-fertilized controls. Moreover, a significant relationship was established between the change in PLFA abundances and their respective changes in δ13C for the aggregate of samples and those simultaneously fertilized with N and P. We conclude that use of compound specific isotope analysis in the absence of labelling represents a valuable and overlooked tool in obtaining an insight of microbial community functioning.

Suggested Citation

  • Stavros D Veresoglou & Barry Thornton & George Menexes & Andreas P Mamolos & Demetrios S Veresoglou, 2012. "Soil Fertilization Leads to a Decline in Between-Samples Variability of Microbial Community δ13C Profiles in a Grassland Fertilization Experiment," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(9), pages 1-8, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0044203
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0044203
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0044203
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0044203&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0044203?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael W. I. Schmidt & Margaret S. Torn & Samuel Abiven & Thorsten Dittmar & Georg Guggenberger & Ivan A. Janssens & Markus Kleber & Ingrid Kögel-Knabner & Johannes Lehmann & David A. C. Manning & Pa, 2011. "Persistence of soil organic matter as an ecosystem property," Nature, Nature, vol. 478(7367), pages 49-56, October.
    2. Kay I. Penny, 1996. "Appropriate Critical Values When Testing for a Single Multivariate Outlier by Using the Mahalanobis Distance," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 45(1), pages 73-81, March.
    3. Michelle C. Mack & Edward A. G. Schuur & M. Syndonia Bret-Harte & Gaius R. Shaver & F. Stuart Chapin, 2004. "Ecosystem carbon storage in arctic tundra reduced by long-term nutrient fertilization," Nature, Nature, vol. 431(7007), pages 440-443, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Akinpelu, O.A. & Olaleye, O. & Fagbola, O., 2023. "The Soil Organic Matter Decomposers: A Bibliometric Analysis," International Journal of Agriculture and Environmental Research, Malwa International Journals Publication, vol. 9(4), August.
    2. Nicoletta Cannone & M. Guglielmin & P. Convey & M. R. Worland & S. E. Favero Longo, 2016. "Vascular plant changes in extreme environments: effects of multiple drivers," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 134(4), pages 651-665, February.
    3. Zhiping Zhang & Fuqiang Xia & Degang Yang & Yufang Zhang & Tianyi Cai & Rongwei Wu, 2019. "Comparative Study of Environmental Assessment Methods in the Evaluation of Resources and Environmental Carrying Capacity—A Case Study in Xinjiang, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(17), pages 1-16, August.
    4. César Merino-Soto & Alicia Boluarte Carbajal & Filiberto Toledano-Toledano & Laura A. Nabors & Miguel Ángel Núñez-Benítez, 2022. "A New Story on the Multidimensionality of the MSPSS: Validity of the Internal Structure through Bifactor ESEM," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(2), pages 1-17, January.
    5. Louisa Lorenz & Anne Doherty & Patricia Casey, 2019. "The Role of Religion in Buffering the Impact of Stressful Life Events on Depressive Symptoms in Patients with Depressive Episodes or Adjustment Disorder," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(7), pages 1-13, April.
    6. Kristof Dorau & Chris Bamminger & Daniel Koch & Tim Mansfeldt, 2022. "Evidences of soil warming from long-term trends (1951–2018) in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 170(1), pages 1-13, January.
    7. Guoai Li & Xuxu Chai & Zheng Shi & Honghua Ruan, 2023. "Interactive Effects Determine Radiocarbon Abundance in Soil Fractions of Global Biomes," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-17, May.
    8. Gyula Gyebnár & Zoltán Klimaj & László Entz & Dániel Fabó & Gábor Rudas & Péter Barsi & Lajos R Kozák, 2019. "Personalized microstructural evaluation using a Mahalanobis-distance based outlier detection strategy on epilepsy patients’ DTI data – Theory, simulations and example cases," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(9), pages 1-30, September.
    9. Isabel Teichmann, 2015. "An Economic Assessment of Soil Carbon Sequestration with Biochar in Germany," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1476, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    10. Shaw, C.H. & Hilger, A.B. & Metsaranta, J. & Kurz, W.A. & Russo, G. & Eichel, F. & Stinson, G. & Smyth, C. & Filiatrault, M., 2014. "Evaluation of simulated estimates of forest ecosystem carbon stocks using ground plot data from Canada's National Forest Inventory," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 272(C), pages 323-347.
    11. Gökhan Akıncı & Lutfihak Alpkan & Bora Yıldız & Gaye Karacay, 2022. "The Link between Ambidextrous Leadership and Innovative Work Behavior in a Military Organization: The Moderating Role of Climate for Innovation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-19, November.
    12. Miriam Githongo & Lucy Ngatia & Milka Kiboi & Anne Muriuki & Andreas Fliessbach & Collins Musafiri & Riqiang Fu & Felix Ngetich, 2023. "The Structural Quality of Soil Organic Matter under Selected Soil Fertility Management Practices in the Central Highlands of Kenya," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-13, April.
    13. Miquelajauregui, Yosune & Cumming, Steven G. & Gauthier, Sylvie, 2019. "Short-term responses of boreal carbon stocks to climate change: A simulation study of black spruce forests," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 409(C), pages 1-1.
    14. Rafaella Campos & Gabrielle Ferreira Pires & Marcos Heil Costa, 2020. "Soil Carbon Sequestration in Rainfed and Irrigated Production Systems in a New Brazilian Agricultural Frontier," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 10(5), pages 1-14, May.
    15. Damien Finn & Kerrilyn Catton & Marijke Heenan & Peter M. Kopittke & Diane Ouwerkerk & Athol V. Klieve & Ram C. Dalal, 2018. "Differential Gene Expression in the Model Actinomycete Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2) Supports Nitrogen Mining Dependent on the Plant Carbon to Nitrogen Ratio," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 8(12), pages 1-10, December.
    16. van Wijk, M.T., 2007. "Predicting ecosystem functioning from plant traits: Results from a multi-scale ecophysiological modeling approach," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 203(3), pages 453-463.
    17. Mauro Mussini, 2014. "Decomposing inequality change from the perspective of reranking and income growth between income groups," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 47(2), pages 619-637, September.
    18. Marta Kowal & Piotr Sorokowski, 2022. "Sex Differences in Physical Attractiveness Investments: Overlooked Side of Masculinity," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(7), pages 1-9, March.
    19. Ping, Jiaye & Zhou, Jian & Huang, Kun & Sun, Xiaoying & Sun, Huanfa & Xia, Jianyang, 2021. "Modeling the typhoon disturbance effect on ecosystem carbon storage dynamics in a subtropical forest of China's coastal region," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 455(C).
    20. Timothy E. Crews & Brian E. Rumsey, 2017. "What Agriculture Can Learn from Native Ecosystems in Building Soil Organic Matter: A Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-18, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0044203. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.