Skip to main content

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Microbiological Chemistry and Geomicrobiology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2024.1418425

Impact of nitrogen addition on the physical properties and bacterial community of subtropical forests in northern Guangxi

Provisionally accepted
Jian X. Jiang Jian X. Jiang yang Z. Ou yang Z. Ou *qiang C. Tan qiang C. Tan *fei Q. He fei Q. He *Wei Zheng Wei Zheng *bo Y. Tan bo Y. Tan *Feng He Feng He *Hao Shen Hao Shen *
  • Guangxi Forestry Research Institute, Nanning, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    In recent years, nitrogen deposition has constantly continued to rise globally. However, the impact of nitrogen deposition on the soil physicochemical properties and microbial community structure in northern Guangxi is still unclear.Along these lines, in this work, to investigate the impact of atmospheric nitrogen deposition on soil nutrient status and bacterial community in subtropical regions, four different nitrogen treatments (CK : 0 g N • m -2 • a -1 , II : 50 g N • m -2 • a -1 , III : 100 g N • m -2 • a -1 , IV : 150 g N • m -2 • a -1 ) were established. The focus was on analysing the soil physical and chemical properties, as well as bacterial community characteristics across varying nitrogen application levels. From the acquired results, it was demonstrated that nitrogen application led to a significant decrease in soil pH.Compared with CK, the pH of treatment IV decreased by 4.23%, which corresponded to an increase in soil organic carbon and total nitrogen. Moreover, compared with CK, the soil organic carbon of treatment IV increased by 9.28%, and the total nitrogen of treatment IV increased by 19.69%. However, no significant impact on the available nitrogen and phosphorus was detected. The bacterial diversity index first increased and then decreased with the increase of the nitrogen application level. The dominant phylum in the soil was Acidobacteria (34.63%-40.67%), Proteobacteria, and Chloroflexi. Interestingly, the abundance of Acidobacteria notably increased with higher nitrogen application levels, particularly evident in the IV treatment group where it surpassed the control group. Considering that nitrogen addition first changes soil nutrients and then lowers soil pH, the abundance of certain oligotrophic bacteria like Acidobacteria can be caused, which showed a first decreasing and then increasing trend. On the contrary, eutrophic bacteria, such as Actinobacteria and Proteobacteria, displayed a decline. From the redundancy analysis, it was highlighted that total nitrogen and pH were the primary driving forces affecting the bacterial community composition.

    Keywords: nitrogen deposition, Soil bacterial community, soil physicochemical properties, Subtropical areas, Mao'er mountain

    Received: 17 Apr 2024; Accepted: 23 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Jiang, Ou, Tan, He, Zheng, Tan, He and Shen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    yang Z. Ou, Guangxi Forestry Research Institute, Nanning, China
    qiang C. Tan, Guangxi Forestry Research Institute, Nanning, China
    fei Q. He, Guangxi Forestry Research Institute, Nanning, China
    Wei Zheng, Guangxi Forestry Research Institute, Nanning, China
    bo Y. Tan, Guangxi Forestry Research Institute, Nanning, China
    Feng He, Guangxi Forestry Research Institute, Nanning, China
    Hao Shen, Guangxi Forestry Research Institute, Nanning, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.