Effects of Manure and Chemical Fertilizer on Bacterial Community Structure and Soil Enzyme Activities in North China

The application of organic fertilizer affects soil microbes and enzyme activities. In this study, we explored the effects of various long-term different fertilization treatments (manure, M; chemical fertilizer, NP; manure + chemical fertilizer, MNP; and no fertilizer, CK) on bacterial community structure and soil sucrase, urease, and alkaline phosphatase activities in Shaping, Hequ, China. High-throughput sequencing was used to amplify the third to the fourth hypervariable region of the 16S ribosomal RNA for analysis of the bacterial community structure. Enzyme activities were determined by colorimetry. Soil treated with MNP had the highest bacterial Abundance-based Coverage Estimator index and enzyme activities. The principal coordinates analysis results showed significant differences among the various fertilization treatments (p < 0.001). Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Acidobacteria, Gemmatimonadetes, and Chloroflexi were consistently dominant in all soil samples. The redundancy analysis and Monte Carlo permutation tests showed that the soil bacterial communities were significantly correlated with alkali-hydrolyzable nitrogen, organic matter, urease, and alkaline phosphatase. Our results reveal the fundamentally different effects that organic and inorganic fertilizers have on soil bacterial communities and their functions.

Automated summary

This study investigated the effects of various long-term fertilization treatments on soil microbial communities and enzyme activities. Results showed that soil treated with MNP had the highest bacterial Abundance-based Coverage Estimator index and enzyme activities, indicating significant differences among the fertilization treatments. Soil bacterial communities were found to be significantly correlated with various soil properties and enzyme activities. The study highlights the distinct effects of organic and inorganic fertilizers on soil bacterial communities and functions.