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Journal article
Interactive effects of nitrogen and phosphorus on soil microbial communities in a tropical forest
PL o S One, Vol.8(4), E61188
8
2013
PMCID: PMC3625167
Web of Science ID: WOS:000317385300056
Abstract
Elevated nitrogen (N) deposition in humid tropical regions may exacerbate phosphorus (P) deficiency in forests on highly weathered soils. However, it is not clear how P availability affects soil microbes and soil carbon (C), or how P processes interact with N deposition in tropical forests. We examined the effects of N and P additions on soil microbes and soil C pools in a N-saturated old-growth tropical forest in southern China to test the hypotheses that (1) N and P addition will have opposing effects on soil microbial biomass and activity, (2) N and P addition will alter the composition of the microbial community, (3) the addition of N and P will have interactive effects on soil microbes and (4) addition-mediated changes in microbial communities would feed back on soil C pools. Phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) analysis was used to quantify the soil microbial community following four treatments: Control, N addition (15 g N m⁻² yr⁻¹), P addition (15 g P m⁻² yr⁻¹), and N&P addition (15 g N m⁻² yr⁻¹ plus 15 g P m⁻² yr⁻¹). These were applied from 2007 to 2011. Whereas additions of P increased soil microbial biomass, additions of N reduced soil microbial biomass. These effects, however, were transient, disappearing over longer periods. Moreover, N additions significantly increased relative abundance of fungal PLFAs and P additions significantly increased relative abundance of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi PLFAs. Nitrogen addition had a negative effect on light fraction C, but no effect on heavy fraction C and total soil C. In contrast, P addition significantly decreased both light fraction C and total soil C. However, there were no interactions between N addition and P addition on soil microbes. Our results suggest that these nutrients are not co-limiting, and that P rather than N is limiting in this tropical forest.
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- Title
- Interactive effects of nitrogen and phosphorus on soil microbial communities in a tropical forest
- Publication Details
- PL o S One, Vol.8(4), E61188
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science; United States
- Series
- 8
- Grant note
- This study was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No 41273143) and the National Key Basic Research 973 Programme (2010CB833502). P. Gundersen received support from the Water Research Initiative (ViVa), the Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Copenhagen. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
- Copyright
- © 2013 Liu et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
- Identifiers
- WOS:000317385300056; 99380090871206600
- Academic Unit
- Biology; Hal Marcus College of Science and Engineering
- Language
- English