IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0228364.html

The distribution of functional N-cycle related genes and ammonia and nitrate nitrogen in soil profiles fertilized with mineral and organic N fertilizer

Author

Listed:
  • Massimo Zilio
  • Silvia Motta
  • Fulvia Tambone
  • Barbara Scaglia
  • Gabriele Boccasile
  • Andrea Squartini
  • Fabrizio Adani

Abstract

Nitrogen transformation in soil is a complex process and the soil microbial population can regulate the potential for N mineralization, nitrification and denitrification. Here we show that agricultural soils under standard agricultural N-management are consistently characterized by a high presence of gene copies for some of the key biological activities related to the N-cycle. This led to a strong NO3- reduction (75%) passing from the soil surface (15.38 ± 11.36 g N-NO3 kg-1 on average) to the 1 m deep layer (3.92 ± 4.42 g N-NO3 kg-1 on average), and ensured low nitrate presence in the deepest layer. Under these circumstances the other soil properties play a minor role in reducing soil nitrate presence in soil. However, with excessive N fertilization, the abundance of bacterial gene copies is not sufficient to explain N leaching in soil and other factors, i.e. soil texture and rainfall, become more important in controlling these aspects.

Suggested Citation

  • Massimo Zilio & Silvia Motta & Fulvia Tambone & Barbara Scaglia & Gabriele Boccasile & Andrea Squartini & Fabrizio Adani, 2020. "The distribution of functional N-cycle related genes and ammonia and nitrate nitrogen in soil profiles fertilized with mineral and organic N fertilizer," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(6), pages 1-19, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0228364
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0228364
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0228364
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0228364&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0228364?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. S. Leininger & T. Urich & M. Schloter & L. Schwark & J. Qi & G. W. Nicol & J. I. Prosser & S. C. Schuster & C. Schleper, 2006. "Archaea predominate among ammonia-oxidizing prokaryotes in soils," Nature, Nature, vol. 442(7104), pages 806-809, August.
    2. Holger Daims & Elena V. Lebedeva & Petra Pjevac & Ping Han & Craig Herbold & Mads Albertsen & Nico Jehmlich & Marton Palatinszky & Julia Vierheilig & Alexandr Bulaev & Rasmus H. Kirkegaard & Martin vo, 2015. "Complete nitrification by Nitrospira bacteria," Nature, Nature, vol. 528(7583), pages 504-509, December.
    3. Benjamin Leon Bodirsky & Alexander Popp & Hermann Lotze-Campen & Jan Philipp Dietrich & Susanne Rolinski & Isabelle Weindl & Christoph Schmitz & Christoph Müller & Markus Bonsch & Florian Humpenöder &, 2014. "Reactive nitrogen requirements to feed the world in 2050 and potential to mitigate nitrogen pollution," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 5(1), pages 1-7, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chen, Ning & Li, Xianyue & Šimůnek, Jiří & Shi, Haibin & Zhang, Yuehong & Hu, Qi, 2022. "Quantifying inter-species nitrogen competition in the tomato-corn intercropping system with different spatial arrangements," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).

    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. Durga P. M. Chinthalapudi & William Kingery & Shankar Ganapathi Shanmugam, 2025. "A Review of Plant-Mediated and Fertilization-Induced Shifts in Ammonia Oxidizers: Implications for Nitrogen Cycling in Agroecosystems," Land, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-25, May.
    2. Kehinde Abraham Odelade & Olubukola Oluranti Babalola, 2019. "Bacteria, Fungi and Archaea Domains in Rhizospheric Soil and Their Effects in Enhancing Agricultural Productivity," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(20), pages 1-19, October.
    3. Dominic Lemken & Mandy Knigge & Stephan Meyerding & Achim Spiller, 2017. "The Value of Environmental and Health Claims on New Legume Products: A Non-Hypothetical Online Auction," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(8), pages 1-18, July.
    4. Yi Li & Xinqi Chen & Xinzi Wang & Jiahui Shang & Lihua Niu & Longfei Wang & Huanjun Zhang & Wenlong Zhang, 2022. "The Effects of Paroxetine on Benthic Microbial Food Web and Nitrogen Transformation in River Sediments," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(21), pages 1-14, November.
    5. Dupré, Anem & Raynal, Paul-Alain & Gounand, Isabelle & Pierre, Caroline, 2025. "Revisiting the dynamic simulation model of land-use changes in the Sudano-sahelian countries of Africa (SALU): An open-access application to Senegal," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 510(C).
    6. Florian Humpenöder & Alexander Popp & Carl-Friedrich Schleussner & Anton Orlov & Michael Gregory Windisch & Inga Menke & Julia Pongratz & Felix Havermann & Wim Thiery & Fei Luo & Patrick v. Jeetze & J, 2022. "Overcoming global inequality is critical for land-based mitigation in line with the Paris Agreement," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-15, December.
    7. Montaño San Agustin, Daniela & Orta Ledesma, Maria Teresa & Monje Ramírez, Ignacio & Yáñez Noguez, Isaura & Luna Pabello, Víctor Manuel & Velasquez-Orta, Sharon B., 2022. "A non-sterile heterotrophic microalgal process for dual biomass production and carbon removal from swine wastewater," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 181(C), pages 592-603.
    8. Tomoko Hasegawa & Ronald D. Sands & Thierry Brunelle & Yiyun Cui & Stefan Frank & Shinichiro Fujimori & Alexander Popp, 2020. "Food security under high bioenergy demand toward long-term climate goals," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 163(3), pages 1587-1601, December.
    9. Agata Novara & Valentina Catania & Marco Tolone & Luciano Gristina & Vito Armando Laudicina & Paola Quatrini, 2020. "Cover Crop Impact on Soil Organic Carbon, Nitrogen Dynamics and Microbial Diversity in a Mediterranean Semiarid Vineyard," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-18, April.
    10. He, Yanying & Li, Yiming & Li, Xuecheng & Liu, Yingrui & Wang, Yufen & Guo, Haixiao & Hou, Jiaqi & Zhu, Tingting & Liu, Yiwen, 2023. "Net-zero greenhouse gas emission from wastewater treatment: Mechanisms, opportunities and perspectives," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    11. X.X. Dong & L.L. Zhang & Z.J. Wu & H.W. Zhang & P. Gong, 2013. "The response of nitrifier, N-fixer and denitrifier gene copy numbers to the nitrification inhibitor 3,4-dimethylpyrazole phosphate," Plant, Soil and Environment, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 59(9), pages 398-403.
    12. Yusuf Nadi Karatay & Andreas Meyer-Aurich, 2018. "A Model Approach for Yield-Zone-Specific Cost Estimation of Greenhouse Gas Mitigation by Nitrogen Fertilizer Reduction," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-18, March.
    13. Wei, Zhibiao & Zhuang, Minghao & Hellegers, Petra & Cui, Zhenling & Hoffland, Ellis, 2023. "Towards circular nitrogen use in the agri-food system at village and county level in China," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    14. Qiong Wan & Qingji Han & Hailin Luo & Tao He & Feng Xue & Zihuizhong Ye & Chen Chen & Shan Huang, 2020. "Ceramsite Facilitated Microbial Degradation of Pollutants in Domestic Wastewater," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(13), pages 1-13, June.
    15. Yang, Liuqingying & Wen, Qing & Chen, Ye & Lin, Cunguo & Gao, Haiping & Qiu, Zhenghui & Pan, Xu, 2025. "Capacitive bio–electrocatalyst Mxene@CoMo–ZIF sulfide heterostructure for boosted biofilm electroactivity to enhance renewable energy conversion," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 243(C).
    16. Zhao, Yue & Luo, Jiafa & Liu, Ling & Xu, Xiangbo & Jin, Shuqin & Yang, Xiaoming & Bai, Zhaohai & Ma, Lin, 2026. "Policy responses and spatial adjustments in China's pig production: Impacts on nitrogen losses and socioeconomic costs," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 231(C).
    17. Ghazal Srivastava & Aparna Kapoor & Absar Ahmad Kazmi, 2023. "Improved Biological Phosphorus Removal under Low Solid Retention Time Regime in Full-Scale Sequencing Batch Reactor," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-22, May.
    18. Hannaford, Naomi E. & Heaps, Sarah E. & Nye, Tom M.W. & Curtis, Thomas P. & Allen, Ben & Golightly, Andrew & Wilkinson, Darren J., 2023. "A sparse Bayesian hierarchical vector autoregressive model for microbial dynamics in a wastewater treatment plant," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    19. Liu, Min & Xu, Wenli & Zhang, Hangyu & Chen, Huang & Bie, Qiang & Han, Guodong & Yu, Xiaohua, 2022. "Livestock production, greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, and grassland conservation: Quasi-natural experimental evidence," MPRA Paper 115704, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Xingjia He & Sen Li & Fengzhi Wu, 2021. "Responses of Ammonia-Oxidizing Microorganisms to Intercropping Systems in Different Seasons," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-17, February.

    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:pone00:0228364. 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.