Shifts in the abundance and community structure of soil ammonia oxidizers in a wet sclerophyll forest under long-term prescribed burning

Xi-En Long; Chengrong Chen; Zhihong Xu; Ji-Zheng He

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2013.10.011

Shifts in the abundance and community structure of soil ammonia oxidizers in a wet sclerophyll forest under long-term prescribed burning

Sci Total Environ. 2014 Feb 1:470-471:578-86. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2013.10.011. Epub 2013 Oct 26.

Authors

Xi-En Long¹, Chengrong Chen², Zhihong Xu³, Ji-Zheng He⁴

Affiliations

¹ Environmental Futures Centre and Griffith School of Environment, Griffith University, Nathan, Brisbane, QLD 4111, Australia; Key Laboratory of Urban Environment and Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen 361021, China.
² Environmental Futures Centre and Griffith School of Environment, Griffith University, Nathan, Brisbane, QLD 4111, Australia. Electronic address: c.chen@griffith.edu.au.
³ Environmental Futures Centre and School of Biomolecular and Physical Sciences, Griffith University, Nathan, Brisbane, QLD 4111, Australia.
⁴ Environmental Futures Centre and School of Biomolecular and Physical Sciences, Griffith University, Nathan, Brisbane, QLD 4111, Australia; State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Centre for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China.

PMID: 24176706
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2013.10.011

Abstract

Fire shapes global biome distribution and promotes the terrestrial biogeochemical cycles. Ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and archaea (AOA) play a vital role in the biogeochemical cycling of nitrogen (N). However, behaviors of AOB and AOA under long-term prescribed burning remain unclear. This study was to examine how fire affected the abundances and communities of soil AOB and AOA. A long-term repeated forest fire experiment with three burning treatments (never burnt, B0; biennially burnt, B2; and quadrennially burnt, B4) was used in this study. The abundances and community structure of soil AOB and AOA were determined using quantitative PCR, restriction fragment length polymorphism and clone library. More frequent fires (B2) increased the abundance of bacterium amoA gene, but tended to decrease archaeal amoA genes. Fire also modified the composition of AOA and AOB communities. Canonical correspondence analysis showed soil pH and dissolved organic C (DOC) strongly affected AOB genotypes, while nitrate-N and DOC shaped the AOA distribution. The increased abundance of bacterium amoA gene by fires may imply an important role of AOB in nitrification in fire-affected soils. The fire-induced shift in the community composition of AOB and AOA demonstrates that fire can disturb nutrient cycles.

Keywords: Abundance; Ammonia-oxidizing archaea; Ammonia-oxidizing bacteria; Community composition; Nitrification; Prescribed burning.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Ammonia / analysis
Ammonia / metabolism*
Archaea / physiology
Bacteria / growth & development
Bacteria / metabolism
Biodegradation, Environmental
Biodiversity
Fires*
Forestry / methods*
Nitrification
Nitrogen / analysis
Nitrogen / metabolism
Oxidation-Reduction
Soil / chemistry
Soil Microbiology*
Trees / chemistry

Substances

Soil
Ammonia
Nitrogen