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Grassland conversion to cropland decreased microbial assimilation of mineral N into their residues in a Chernozem soil

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Abstract

The effect of grassland conversion to cropland on the incorporation of N into microbial residues remains unclear. We analyzed for amino sugars, as a microbial residue biomarker, and adopted stable-isotope-probing technique to trace the assimilation of 15NH4+-N (added in the form of 15 N-labelled ammonium sulphate) into amino sugars with or without organic C sources (glucose and crop residue) in native grassland and converted cropland soils over a 65-day period. Total 15 N-amino sugars in the cropland were significantly decreased by 16–29% compared to grassland regardless of C source. This suggests that the microbial assimilation of available N into microbial residues was decreased, after conversion, and that stronger responses to substrate inputs occurred in the grassland soils. The addition of available and complex C substrates triggered divergent accumulation patterns of 15 N-amino sugars, indicating that C availability was a major driver for microbial N immobilization. Meanwhile, the conversion of grassland led to suppressed N immobilization activity of both fungi and bacteria. These results suggest that long-term land-use change could considerably affect the N utilization by fungi and bacteria during their anabolic processes, which may exert long-lasting impacts on soil organic N storage.

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Funding

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42077085; 41630862) and the Startup Foundation for Introducing Talent of NUIST (2018r100).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Applied Meteorology, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China

    Xueli Ding, Bin Zhang & Qi Chen

  2. Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, 110016, China

    Hongbo He & Xudong Zhang

  3. Department of Land, Air and Water Resources, University of California, Davis, CA, 95616, USA

    William R. Horwath

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  1. Xueli Ding
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  2. Bin Zhang
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Correspondence to Xueli Ding or Hongbo He.

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Ding, X., Zhang, B., Chen, Q. et al. Grassland conversion to cropland decreased microbial assimilation of mineral N into their residues in a Chernozem soil. Biol Fertil Soils 57, 913–924 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00374-021-01581-1

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