Soil microbial eco-physiology as affected by short-term variations in environmental conditions

By A. S. Mamilov, O. Dilly. 2002

86 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Short-term variations in abiotic and biotic environmental conditions modify microbial metabolism. These effects were studied in an arable soil during the oat straw decomposition. Cumulative CO2 evolution was significantly higher when soil was subjected weekly to drying‐ rewetting cycles (DR) or had been initially fertilised with nitrogen (þ N, as NH4NO3) in comparison to samples incubated at constant conditions (CC). The microbial metabolic quotient (respiration rate per unit microbial C) of DR and þN exceeded CC by approximately 100‐ 150%, indicating that variable water availability and improved N availability induced a higher activity level of the microbial biomass. In addition, the metabolic-responsive microbial communities, calculated by the ratio of microbial C estimated by substrate-induced respiration to fumigation ‐ extraction technique, increased from 1.0 to approximately 1.3 after 7 weeks for DR and þ N, but remained essentially at 1.0 for CC and control. A high abundance of soil nematodes significantly affected respiration rate, metabolic-responsive biomass and metabolic quotient during the early stages of decomposition. We concluded that short-term variation in environmental conditions promoted decomposition processes by influencing the physiology of soil microorganisms and increasing the metabolic-responsive biomass. Such a stimulated microbial metabolism seems to be unspecific due to stressing environmental conditions. The role of the interacting fauna such as nematodes varied during decomposition. q 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Subfields: Plant Science, Pollution, Soil Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b26a76adb66d6338cb4690af50c422d3ada49aab

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Plant Science

1. J. Belnap
2. A. Austin
3. Sean Schaeffer
4. Amilcare Porporato
5. J. Stark
6. U. Norton

In Soil Science

1. A. Austin
2. Jörg Rinklebe
3. Sean Schaeffer
4. U. Langer
5. Amilcare Porporato

Citations in the corpus

• Microbial diversity in three floodplain soils at the Elbe River (Germany) (2006, background): “Studies from Anderson and Domsch (1993), Wardle and Ghani (1995), and Mamilov and Dilly (2002) have started to fill this gap.”
• Water pulses and biogeochemical cycles in arid and semiarid ecosystems (2004, background): “…to differences in desiccation resistance, drought avoidance and other short-term physiological changes (Kieft et al. 1987; Van Gestel et al. 1993; Mamilov and Dilly 2002), suggesting that the pulsed water availability could serve as a selective mechanism in arid and semiarid ecosystems for…”