Plants and microbes' responses to the net nitrification rates of chemical fertilizers in vegetable soils
Introduction
Vegetables provide nutrition for human beings by increasing the quality and number of consumed foods (Girard et al., 2012; Chadha et al., 2012; Jaenicke and Virchow, 2013; Weinberger, 2013). However, the amount of vegetable intake in such developing countries as Bangladesh is usually less than the suggested amount of 400 g/day (Keatinge et al., 2011). For some time, local and international non-government organizations (NGOs) have promoted vegetable production in Bangladesh, (Talukder et al., 2000), which could increase the amount of food produced, as well as increase the nutrients provided, such as vitamin A, proteins, carbohydrates, antioxidants, etc. (Bushamuka et al., 2005; Kumar and Quisumbing, 2011; Alcázar-Valle et al., 2020).
Nitrification is one of the most important processes in vegetable plant growth and nutrient production (Zhang et al., 2015). Plants do not absorb atmospheric nitrogen (N2) in the air directly, but instead, use N2 as nitrate, which is highly important for plants' growth and development (Yan et al., 2014). Nitrification is carried out by a two-step procedure in which phylogenetically dissimilar clusters of ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) and/or bacteria (AOB) oxidize ammonia primarily to nitrite (Könneke et al., 2005), and then to nitrate through nitrite-oxidizing bacteria (NOB), which is an essential process in nitrogen cycling (Zhang et al., 2011). Nitrifying bacteria play roles by way of crucial enzymes in the nitrification process such as hydroxylamine oxidoreductase, which oxidizes hydroxylamine to nitric oxide, ammonia monooxygenase, which oxidizes ammonia to hydroxylamine, and nitrite oxidoreductase, which oxidizes nitrite to nitrate (Kuypers et al., 2018). Numerous groups of autotrophic AOA and AOB translate ammonia to nitrite via hydroxylamine (Prosser and Nicol, 2012) and a limited group of Proteobacteria oxidize nitrite to nitrate. Further, soil properties and environmental factors, such as soil pH, influence nitrification. The rates of nitrification depend directly/indirectly on N inputs to the system associated with external factors (Norton and Ouyang, 2019). Fertilizer inputs are direct inputs to the soil mineral N pool and enhanced transfer of N may result from either biological fixation or fertilizer, which will also contribute to N inputs (Maheswari et al., 2017).
Comammox (complete ammonia oxidizers), which oxidize ammonia to nitrate in a single organism, the bacterial genus Nitrospira (van Kessel et al., 2015; Daims et al., 2015), were found previously to comprise only canonical nitrite oxidizers (Lebedeva et al., 2008, Lebedeva et al., 2011; Spieck et al., 2006). It is very important to know how often comammox Nitrospira arises in nitrifying microbial communities, and how important they are for nitrification compared to ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) and bacteria (AOB), and NOB. Nitrospira is distributed globally and represents the most diverse group of NOB known (Daims et al., 2015). Nevertheless, their relative effects on the AOB and AOA in agricultural soils are still undefined (Chen et al., 2008).
The abundance of nitrifying bacteria, as well as that of comammox amoA N. inopinata bacteria, and their effects on the NNR in vegetable soils in Bangladesh remain unknown. Numerous studies have focused on nitrification and related microbes under various fertilization regimes (Wang et al., 2019; Sun et al., 2020). Although soils' bacterial diversity is related to plant biomass, and soil properties and biological processes support microbial diversity's effects on plant biomass (Chen et al., 2020), the responses of plants and microbes to the nitrification activity of chemical fertilizers in vegetable soils are unknown. This work is focused on the responses of plants and microbes, specifically nitrifying archaea/bacteria and comammox amoA N. inopinata bacteria, to the NNRs of chemical fertilizers in four vegetable soils. Consequently, the objectives were to determine the NNRs and the abundance of nitrifying archaea/bacteria and comammox amoA N. inopinata bacteria in vegetable soils in the Kushtia district of Khulna division, Bangladesh. The effect of pH and temperature on the NNRs was also determined.
Section snippets
Sample collection
The study was performed in the Kushtia region in the southwestern region of Bangladesh and covered randomly selected villages, in which we conducted surveys of farmers to collect information about the amount and types of chemical fertilizers they use in their vegetable fields. The experimental location and other information on the soils are detailed in Table 1. The study was conducted in farmers' fields at multiple testing sites in the Kushtia districts. We selected such vegetables as Brinjal (
Local farmers' use of chemical fertilizers in vegetable soils
Vegetables are the crops produced mostly in Bangladesh, and the local farmers indicated in the surveys that they use fertilizers extensively to increase the crop yields. The chemical fertilizers used during cropping and their amount are shown in Table 1. Local farmers in the Kushtia district use different chemical fertilizers, including urea (108 to110 kg−1 h−1 y−1 dm), potassium (58 to 60 kg−1 h−1 y−1 dm), phosphate (105 to 110 kg−1 h−1 y−1 dm), and di-ammonium phosphate (DAP) (58 to 60 kg−1 h
Chemical fertilizers' effects on vegetable soils
Previous studies have found that the use of chemical fertilizers had a distinct effect on the biochemical properties of soil, such as fluctuations in SOC, pH, moisture, and N2 compositions in diverse crops, for example, rice, corn, wheat, and others (Rahman et al., 2020; Rahman et al., 2018; Bnnemann et al., 2006). In this study, the chemical properties of vegetable soils indicated that the concentrations of ammonium, nitrate, SOC total C, and total N were significantly higher in vegetable
Conclusion
Farmers in Bangladesh apply various chemical fertilizers to vegetable field soils. The NNRs were significantly higher (p < 0.05) in vegetable soils, except for L. siceraria plant soils, compared to control soils, and both pH and temperature were found to influence nitrification activity. The abundance of comammox amoA N. inopinata ranged from 9.34E+05 to 4.55E+06 copies per gram dry soil and their distribution was found to be 28 to 72% of the nitrifying (AOB, and NOB) amoA genes. Among the
Declaration of competing interest
All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank Dr. Debra L. Forthman, Professional editor employed by Editor World, for checking the paper's English and grammatical errors. The authors thank the Department of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering, Islamic University, Kushtia-7003, Bangladesh for the research facilities. They also thank Mr. S. Al-Din of INVENT technology, for helping with the molecular analysis.
Ethical approval
The authors of this study performed no treatments on humans or animals.
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Equal contribution of both authors as co-first authors.