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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Terrestrial Microbiology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2024.1466991

Transcriptional activity of ammonia oxidisers in response to soil temperature, moisture and nitrogen amendment

Provisionally accepted
Chris Chisholm Chris Chisholm 1*Hong Di Hong Di 1Keith Cameron Keith Cameron 1Andriy Podolyan Andriy Podolyan 1Ju-pei Shen Ju-pei Shen 2Li-mei Zhang Li-mei Zhang 3Kosala Sirisena Kosala Sirisena 1xueying che xueying che 1
  • 1 Lincoln University, Lincoln, New Zealand
  • 2 Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, Fujian Province, China
  • 3 Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing, Beijing, China

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

    The contrasting response of AOA, AOB, and comammox Nitrospira amoA transcript abundance to temperature, moisture, and nitrogen was investigated using soil microcosms. The moisture, temperature, and nitrogen treatments were selected to represent conditions typically found in a New Zealand (NZ) dairy farm.AOB dominated all synthetic urine treated soils. Peak AOB amoA transcript abundance was positively correlated with estimated soil ammonia availability. While AOB gDNA abundance and nitrification rate trends were similar.AOA were strongly influenced by soil temperature. At 20 °C, AOA amoA peak transcript abundance averaged over 1 order of magnitude higher than at 8 °C. Within the AOA community a member of the Nitrosocosmicus clade was positively correlated with ammonium and estimated ammonia concentrations. The presence and relative increase of an AOA community memberNitrosocosmicus i inn a high nitrogen environment poses an interesting contrast to current scientific opinion in NZ.Contrary to previous research, the abundance of comammox Nitrospira Comammox Nitrospira abundance showed no correlation with soil moisturewas not positively correlated with soil moisture. This suggests that previously found the associationassociations areis more complex than originally thought. Further research is required to determine the drivers of comammox Nitrospira abundance in a high moisture environment.Overall, these results indicate that AOB are the main drivers of nitrification in New Zealand dairy farm soils.

    Keywords: Comammox nitrospira, Ammonia oxidising bacteria, AOB, Ammonia oxidising archaea, AOA, Nitrification, Synthetic urine, Urea fertiliser, dairy farm

    Received: 19 Jul 2024; Accepted: 23 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Chisholm, Di, Cameron, Podolyan, Shen, Zhang, Sirisena and che. 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: Chris Chisholm, Lincoln University, Lincoln, New Zealand

    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.