Short-Term Resilience of Soil Microbial Communities and Functions Following Severe Environmental Changes

Stefano Mocali, Antonio Gelsomino, Paolo Nannipieri, Roberta Pastorelli, Laura Giagnoni, Beatrix Petrovicova and Giancarlo Renella
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Stefano Mocali: Research Centre for Agriculture and Environment, Council for Agricultural Research and Economics, Via di Lanciola 12/A, Cascine del Riccio, 50125 Firenze, Italy
Antonio Gelsomino: Department of Agricultural Sciences, Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria, Feo di Vito, 89122 Reggio Calabria, Italy
Paolo Nannipieri: Department of Agriculture, Food, Environment and Forestry, University of Florence, P.le delle Cascine, 28, 50144 Firenze, Italy
Roberta Pastorelli: Research Centre for Agriculture and Environment, Council for Agricultural Research and Economics, Via di Lanciola 12/A, Cascine del Riccio, 50125 Firenze, Italy
Laura Giagnoni: Department of Civil Engineering, Architecture, Environmental and Mathematics (DICATAM), University of Brescia, Via Branze, 43, 25123 Brescia, Italy
Beatrix Petrovicova: Department of Agricultural Sciences, Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria, Feo di Vito, 89122 Reggio Calabria, Italy
Giancarlo Renella: Department of Agronomy, Food, Natural Resources Animals and Environment (DAFNAE), University of Padua, Viale dell’Università 16, Legnaro, 35020 Padova, Italy

Agriculture, 2022, vol. 12, issue 2, 1-27

Abstract: Soil microorganisms are key drivers of soil biochemical processes, but the resilience of microbial communities and their metabolic activity after an extreme environmental change is still largely unknown. We studied structural (bacterial and fungal communities) and functional responses (soil respiration, adenosine triphosphate (ATP) content, hydrolase activities involved in the mineralization of organic C, N, P and S, and microbial community-level physiological profiles (CLPPs)) during the microbial recolonization of three heat-sterilized forest soils followed by cross- or self-reinoculation and incubation for 1, 7 and 30 days. Soil ATP content, biochemical activities and CLPP were annihilated by autoclaving, whereas most of the hydrolase activities were reduced to varying extents depending on the soil and enzyme activity considered. During the incubation period, the combination of self- and cross-reinoculation of different sterilized soils produced rapid dynamic changes in enzymatic activity as well as in microbial structure and catabolic activity. Physicochemical properties of the original soils exerted a major influence in shaping soil functional diversity, while reinoculation of sterilized soils promoted faster and greater changes in bacterial community structure than in fungal communities, varying with incubation period and soil type. Our results also confirmed the importance of microbial richness in determining soil resilience under severe disturbances. In particular, the new microbial communities detected in the treated soils revealed the occurrence of taxa which were not detected in the original soils. This result confirmed that rare microbial taxa rather than the dominant ones may be the major drivers of soil functionality and resilience.

Keywords: microbial diversity; enzymes; catabolic activity; soil recolonization; sterilization; resilience (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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