Evaluation of soil enzyme activities and microbial communities in tomato continuous cropping soil treated with jerusalem artichoke residues

ABSTRACT

Jerusalem artichoke (JY) (Helianthus tuberosus L.) has been reported to have a strong inhibitory effect on weed growth and root knot nematodes, but little information is available on the effects on soil ecosystems, especially soil microorganisms and soil enzyme activities. Understanding the dynamics of soil microbes and soil enzyme activities in cropping systems can help determine how agricultural practices influence soil processes mediated by JY residues. This study used a pot experiment, with five-year continuous cropping soil of tomato plants as the experimental material and 2% (w/w) JY residue as the treatment material in the soil. The treatment was compared to continuously monocropped tomato soil that was not treated with JY residues. The results of 16S high-throughput sequencing showed that both fungal and bacterial community structure and composition varied significantly at each stage of JY treatment. The analysis showed that the major phyla in the soil fungal community included Ascomycota, Zygomycota and Basidiomycota. Chytridiomycota was dominant in only the JY-treated soil. At the genus level, the abundances of Mortierella, Cephaliophora, Cryptococcus and Fusarium notably changed at each stage of JY treatment. In the bacterial community in the JY-treated group, the abundance of Proteobacteria increased significantly, while that of Firmicutes decreased significantly, compared to the control group. JY enhanced the activity of soil sucrase and urease. In addition, the soil sucrase activity showed a strong negative correlation with Fusarium and Bacillus. Overall, our results revealed that JY residues changed both the soil bacterial and fungal community composition and the soil enzyme activities.

KEYWORDS:

• Tomato continuous cropping soil
• Jerusalem artichoke
• soil enzyme activities
• soil microbial communities

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Establishment and Demonstration of the Technical Model of Reducing the Use of Fertilizer and Pesticide on Greenhouse Vegetables in the Cold Region of Northeast China Project (2016YFD0201004), a subproject of the National Key Research and Development Program of China and the Economic Crops (Vegetable) in Hei Longjiang Province Modern Agriculture Industry Technology Innovation System, and the Northeast Agricultural University Young Talent Project (16QC05).

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Funding

This work was supported by the Northeast agricultural university young talent project [16QC05]; the National Key Research and Development Program of China [2016YFD0201004].