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. 2023 Nov 25;13(1):20722.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-44147-x.

Contribution of ammonia-oxidizing archaea and bacteria to nitrogen transformation in a soil fertilized with urea and organic amendments

Yajun Yang  1   2 , Hexiang Liu  1   2 , Yang Zhang  1   2 , Xianhui Fang  1   2 , Xianbao Zhong  1   2 , Jialong Lv  3   4
Affiliations

Contribution of ammonia-oxidizing archaea and bacteria to nitrogen transformation in a soil fertilized with urea and organic amendments

Yajun Yang et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

The contribution of ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) and ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) is crucial for nitrogen transformation. The effects of four organic amendments (OAs) plus urea on soil nitrogen transformation and the contribution of the ammonia-oxidizing microbial community were investigated using an incubation experiment. The OAs plus urea treatments included pig manure plus urea (PM + U), wheat straw plus urea (WS + U), compost plus urea (CP + U) and improved-compost plus urea (IC + U), while no OAs and urea amended control was noted as CK. The abundance and composition of AOA and AOB were determined using high through-put sequencing. Compared with CK, the OA plus urea treatments significantly enhanced the amount of total mineralized nitrogen released during the incubation process. After incubation, the highest mineralized nitrogen and net nitrogen mineralization was under the PM + U treatment and the lowest was in the WS + U treatment. In conclusion, among all OA plus urea treatments, the microbial biomass nitrogen content was the highest in WS + U treatment and dissolved organic nitrogen content was the highest with the PM + U treatment. Additionally, the abundance of AOB was inhibited in comparison to that of AOA; however, AOB contributed more to nitrification than AOA. Soil NO3--N and dissolved organic nitrogen were the principal components influencing the distribution of AOA and AOB. The result illustrated that the OAs plus urea, especially PM plus urea promoted mineralization to produce more dissolved organic nitrogen and NH4+-N, thus accelerating the growth of AOB to strengthen nitrification in soil.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Changes in NH4+-N (a), NO3−-N (b), MBN (c) and DON (d) among all treatments during the incubation (MBN microbial biomass nitrogen, DON dissolved organic nitrogen, PM + U pig manure plus urea, WS + U wheat straw plus urea, CP + U compost plus urea, IC + U improved compost plus urea).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Abundance of archaeal (AOA) and bacterial (AOB) amoA genes among all treatments after the incubation (AOA ammonia-oxidizing archaea, AOB ammonia-oxidizing bacteria, PM + U pig manure plus urea, WS + U wheat straw plus urea, CP + U compost plus urea, IC + U improved compost plus urea).
Figure 3
Figure 3
The community diversities of AOA (a) and AOB (b) among all treatments during the incubation (AOA ammonia-oxidizing archaea, AOB ammonia-oxidizing bacteria, PM + U pig manure plus urea, WS + U wheat straw plus urea, CP + U compost plus urea, IC + U improved compost plus urea).
Figure 4
Figure 4
The community compositions of AOA (a) and AOB (b) among all treatments during the incubation (AOA ammonia-oxidizing archaea, AOB ammonia-oxidizing bacteria, A: Unidentified_Thaumarchaeota; B: Unidentified_Crenarchaeota; C: Unclassified_Nitrosomonadales; D: Unclassified_Bacteria, PM + U pig manure plus urea, WS + U wheat straw plus urea, CP + U (E): compost plus urea, IC + U (F): improved compost plus urea).
Figure 5
Figure 5
Redundancy analysis (RDA) of the relationship between soil properties and community structure of AOA and AOB among all treatments (AOA ammonia-oxidizing archaea, AOB ammonia-oxidizing bacteria, PM + U pig manure plus urea, WS + U wheat straw plus urea, CP + U compost plus urea, IC + U improved compost plus urea).
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