Aims

The home-field advantage (HFA) hypothesis predicts faster decomposition of plant residues in home soil compared to soils with different plants (away), and has been demonstrated in forest and grassland ecosystems. It remains unclear if this legacy effect applies to crop residue decomposition in arable crop rotations. Such knowledge could improve our understanding of decomposition dynamics in arable soils and may allow optimisation of crop residue amendments in arable systems by cleverly combining crop-residue rotations with crop rotations to increase the amount of residue-derived C persisting in soil.

Methods

We tested the HFA hypothesis in a reciprocal transplant experiment with mesh bags containing wheat and oilseed rape residues in soils at three stages of a short-rotation cropping system. Subsets of mesh bags were retrieved monthly for six months to determine residue decomposition rates, concomitantly measuring soil available N, microbial community structure (phospholipid fatty acid analysis), and microbial activity (Tea Bag Index protocol) to assess how plants may influence litter decomposition rates via alterations to soil biochemical properties and microbial communities.

Results

The residues decomposed at similar rates at all rotational stages. Thorough data investigation using several statistical approaches revealed no HFA within the crop rotation. Soil microbial community structures were similar at all rotational stages.

Conclusions

We attribute the absence of an HFA to the shortness of the rotation and soil disturbance involved in intensive agricultural practices. It is therefore unlikely that appreciable benefits could be obtained in short conventionally managed arable rotations by introducing a crop-residue rotation.

中文翻译：

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短轮耕制度缺乏主场优势

目标

主场优势（HFA）假说预测，与拥有不同植物（客场）的土壤相比，主场土壤中植物残留物的分解速度更快，并且已在森林和草原生态系统中得到证实。目前尚不清楚这种遗留效应是否适用于耕作轮作中的作物残茬分解。这些知识可以提高我们对耕地土壤分解动态的理解，并可以通过巧妙地将作物-残留物轮作与作物轮作结合起来，以增加土壤中残留的残留物来源的碳量，从而优化耕地系统中的作物残留物改良。

方法

我们在短轮作制度三个阶段的土壤中使用含有小麦和油菜残留物的网袋进行交互移植实验，测试了 HFA 假设。六个月内每月回收网袋子集，以确定残留物分解率，同时测量土壤有效氮、微生物群落结构（磷脂脂肪酸分析）和微生物活动（茶袋指数方案），以评估植物如何影响凋落物分解率通过改变土壤生化特性和微生物群落。

结果

残留物在所有旋转阶段以相似的速率分解。使用多种统计方法进行的彻底数据调查表明，轮作中没有 HFA。所有轮转阶段的土壤微生物群落结构相似。

结论

我们将 HFA 的缺乏归因于集约化农业实践中轮作时间短和土壤扰动。因此，通过引入作物残茬轮作，短期内采用常规管理的耕地轮作不太可能获得可观的效益。