Scientia Agricultura Sinica ›› 2020, Vol. 53 ›› Issue (13): 2637-2646.doi: 10.3864/j.issn.0578-1752.2020.13.012

• TECHNOLOGY AND MECHANISM OF TEMPERATE MEADOW STEPPE RESTORATION • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Molecular Ecological Network Analyses Revealing the Effects of Nitrogen Application on Soil Microbial Community in the Degraded Grasslands

ZHU RuiFen1,LIU JieLin1,WANG JianLi1,HAN WeiBo1,SHEN ZhongBao1,XIN XiaoPing2()   

  1. 1Institute of Pratacultural Science, Heilongjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Harbin 150086
    2Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081
  • Received:2019-09-10 Accepted:2020-02-19 Online:2020-07-01 Published:2020-07-16
  • Contact: XiaoPing XIN E-mail:cyszps@163.com

Abstract:

【Objective】 Nitrogen input affects the sustainability of the global grassland ecosystem. Paying attention to the soil microbial community and its molecular ecological network can provide a theoretical basis for grassland degradation restoration. 【Method】 Taking Songnen degraded Leymus chinensis grassland as the research object, the molecular ecological network of soil microbial community was constructed by applying high-throughput sequencing and random matrix network construction with and without nitrogen treatment. To explore the effects of nitrogen management on the soil microbial community structure and network in degraded Leymus chinensis grassland, the key microbial changes in the microbial network structure under the condition of nitrogen addition was studied, and the interaction between microorganisms during the process were investigated, and the conditions for external nitrogen addition key points and regularity of soil bacterial dynamic change were analyzed. 【Result】 At the level of phylum classification, there were 22 bacterial phylum in nitrogen-applied grassland and 23 without nitrogen. The 7 phylum were the dominant phylum of the nitrogen-applied and non-nitrogen-applied grasslands. Among them, Proteobacteria was the phyla containing the largest number of OTUs, accounting for about 30.46% of the total sequence. The next largest genus was about 30.15% of the total sequence. The genus Gemmatimonadetes was the third genus containing OTUs, accounting for 8.14% of the total sequence. Actinomycete accounted for about the total 6.15% of the sequence, while Chloroflexi, Bacteroidetes and Nitrospirae accounted for 17.16% of the total sequence. The relative abundances of Proteobacteria, Actinomycota and Bacteroides in soil microorganisms in nitrogen-applied grassland were significantly higher than those in non-nitrogen applied grassland soil; The relative abundances of Proteobacteria, Actinomycete and Bacteroidetes were significantly higher than the soils of nitrogen-applied grassland (P<0.01), and no significant difference was found between the nitrogen application and non-nitrogen treatment of other bacteria. The forward connection ratio, the average path length, the average clustering coefficient, and the modularity of the characterizing network were all significantly lower than the nitrogen-free treatment (P<0.001). In the molecular ecological network of soil, there were 16 modular hubs without nitrogen treatment (Zi>2.5, Pi≤0.62), and there were 6 modular hubs under nitrogen treatment, all of which belong to Acidobacteria, Gemmatimonadetes and Actinomycete. Nitrogen application led to changes in soil microbial species relationships, which in turn changed the overall soil ecological network. 【Conclusion】 Nitrogen application reduced the complexity and tightness of soil network structure of degraded grassland, and reduced the relative abundance of Acidobacteria and Chloroflexi in degraded grassland, while which improved the relative abundance of Proteobacteria, Actinomycete and Gemmatimonadetes. The number of microbial key species (OTU) in soil decreased from 16 (no nitrogen application) to 6 and there was no overlapping OTU in both soils, indicating that nitrogen application regulated key species of its community network and thus changes its molecular ecological network.

Key words: nitrogen application, degraded grassland, soil microbe, molecular ecology network

Table 1

Chemical characteristic of no fertilized (NF) and fertilized (F) soils of grassland"

处理
Treatment
pH 土壤全氮
STN (g·kg-1)
土壤全磷
STP (g·kg-1)
土壤铵态氮
SNH4 (mg·kg-1)
土壤硝态氮
SNO3 (mg·kg-1)
土壤速效磷
SAP (mg·kg-1)
F 7.95a 1.71a 0.53b 17.80a 21.62a 10.45a
NF 8.09a 1.31b 0.60b 12.61b 14.75b 10.49a

Table 2

Results of sample sequencing data evaluation"

样品名称Sample ID 双端序列
PE reads
原始序列
Raw tags
优化序列
Clean tags
有效序列
Effective tags
平均序列长度
Average length (bp)
GC
(%)
Q20
(%)
Q30
(%)
Effective
(%)
NF 47023 44654 39465 38754 421 57.14 97.15 94.39 82.41
F 66659 63320 56208 55106 420 56.61 97.26 94.61 82.67

Table 3

OTUs distribution of main bacterial Phylum"

样品名称
Sample ID
变形菌门
Proteobacteria
酸杆菌门
Acidobacteria
芽单胞菌门Gemmatimonadetes 放线菌
Actinomycete
绿弯菌门Chloroflexi 拟杆菌门Bacteroidetes 硝化螺旋菌门Nitrospirae
NF 282b 280a 76a 57b 37b 26b 14b
F 316a 258b 52b 89a 31a 30a 22a

Table 4

Topological properties of the empirical molecular ecological networks (MENs) of microbial communities in the no fertilized (NF) and fertilized (F) soils"

处理Treatment 阈值
Threshold
节点数
Total node
连接数
Total links
正向连接比
Positive link percentage (%)
平均连通度
Connectivity
平均路径长度
Average path distance
平均聚集系数
Clustering coefficient
模块性
Modularity
F 0.9 1872 19873 53.2* 23.6* 2.33* 0.435* 0.46*
NF 0.9 1913 20389 69.4* 28.7* 2.89* 0.462* 0.41*

Fig. 1

The Z-P plot showing the distribution of OTUs in the fertilized (F) and no fertilized (NF) soils based on their topological roles"

Table 5

The key role of OTUs in different treatments"

No. OTUs 关键OTUs Key OTUs 样品名称Sample ID
1 OTU76 c_Subgroup_6;Unclassified; Unclassified; Unclassified NF
2 OTU545 c_Chloroflexia;o_Chloroflexales; f_Roseiflexaceae; g_Roseiflexus NF
3 OTU1682 g_Chthoniobacter; s_uncultured_Verrucomicrobia_bacterium NF
4 OTU1975 g_Bryobacter; s__uncultured_bacterium_g_Bryobacter NF
5 OTU3589 g_Roseomonas NF
6 OTU1174 g_Haliangium NF
7 OTU300 g_uncultured_bacterium_f_0319-6A21; s_uncultured_ bacterium_f_0319-6A21) NF
8 OTU2179 g_uncultured_bacterium_f_Acidobacteriaceae_ [Subgroup_1] NF
9 OTU688 g_uncultured_bacterium_c_Gitt-GS-136; s_uncultured_bacterium_c_Gitt-GS-136 NF
10 OTU5024 c_Subgroup_6; Unclassified; Unclassified; Unclassified; Unclassified NF
11 OTU1827 f_Geobacteraceae; Unclassified; Unclassified NF
12 OTU6317 g__uncultured_bacterium_f_Caldilineaceae; s__uncultured_bacterium_f_Caldilineaceae NF
13 OTU828 c_Subgroup_6 NF
14 OTU1069 g_uncultured_bacterium_f_Acidimicrobiaceae NF
15 OTU3349 c_OM190; Unclassified; Unclassified; Unclassified; Unclassified NF
16 OTU1830 s_uncultured_bacterium_c_BD2-11_terrestrial_group NF
17 OTU1179 s_uncultured_bacterium_f_Chitinophagaceae F
18 OTU1954 c_Betaproteobacteria; o_SC-I-84; Unclassified; Unclassified; Unclassified F
19 OTU2194 g_Gemmatirosa; s_uncultured_bacterium_g_Gemmatirosa F
20 OTU532 g_uncultured_bacterium_f_MWH-CFBk5;s_uncultured_bacterium_f_MWH- CFBk5 F
21 OTU3703 c_MB-A2-108; Unclassified; Unclassified; Unclassified; Unclassified F
22 OTU630 c_Nitrospira; o_Nitrospirales; f_Nitrospiraceae; g_Nitrospira F

Fig. 2

Network of interactions of the main microbial genus of nitrogen-applied soil The circle represents species, circle size represents abundance; The lines represent the correlation between the two species, the thickness of the lines represents the strength of the correlation. Orange represents positive correlation, and green represents negative correlation. The same as below"

Fig. 3

Network of interactions of the main microbial genus of unnitrogenized soil"

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