Reducing plant-derived ethylene enhances crop growth and soil functions under drought stress in subtropical agroecosystems

IF 3.9 2区农林科学 Q1 AGRONOMY

Plant and Soil Pub Date : 2025-04-28 DOI:10.1007/s11104-025-07481-9

Jing Feng, Xiaocen Tian, Yanjun Liu, Xiaoqi Zhou

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Aims

The increasing frequency of future drought events will negatively impact agroecosystem functions, such as inhibiting crop growth and reducing soil functions. Previous studies have shown that plant-derived ethylene plays an important role in responses to drought, but its effects on crop growth and soil functions in agroecosystems have not been validated.

Methods

We reduced the concentration of ethylene released from crops under drought stress by adding an ethylene inhibitor, aminoethoxyvinylglycine (AVG), and investigated the effects of AVG on the growth and soil functions of Brassica oleracea var. capitata Linnaeus, a common crop in subtropical agriculture, for one growing season. We measured soil respiration, soil extractable carbon, nitrogen content, and soil microbial activity to characterize soil functions, and also observed changes in soil microbial community structure.

Results

Drought caused significant negative effects on crop growth and soil functions, whereas reducing the concentration of plant-derived ethylene significantly mitigated the adverse effects of drought on agroecosystem functions, thereby promoting crop growth and soil functions. The underlying microbial mechanisms include the application of AVG under drought conditions, which remodels the soil microbial community structure. This lead to an increase in the relative abundance of Gram-negative bacteria, such as Aspergillus, which has a significant correlation with crop growth and soil function.

Conclusions

This study demonstrates that reducing plant-derived ethylene under drought can alleviate its detrimental effects on crop growth and soil functions in agroecosystems. This provides a scientific foundation for sustainable management of agriculture in the face of climate change in the future.

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减少植物源性乙烯可提高亚热带农业生态系统干旱胁迫下的作物生长和土壤功能

未来干旱事件频率的增加将对农业生态系统功能产生负面影响，如抑制作物生长和降低土壤功能。以往的研究表明，植物源乙烯在干旱响应中发挥重要作用，但其对作物生长和农业生态系统土壤功能的影响尚未得到证实。方法通过添加乙烯抑制剂氨基乙氧基乙烯甘氨酸（AVG）降低干旱胁迫下作物的乙烯释放浓度，研究AVG对亚热带常见作物甘蓝（Brassica oleracea var. capitata Linnaeus）生长和土壤功能的影响。我们通过测量土壤呼吸、土壤可提取碳、氮含量和土壤微生物活性来表征土壤功能，并观察土壤微生物群落结构的变化。结果干旱对作物生长和土壤功能有显著的负面影响，而降低植物源性乙烯浓度可显著缓解干旱对农业生态系统功能的不利影响，从而促进作物生长和土壤功能。潜在的微生物机制包括干旱条件下AVG的应用，它重塑了土壤微生物群落结构。这导致革兰氏阴性菌（如曲霉）的相对丰度增加，这与作物生长和土壤功能有显著相关性。结论干旱条件下减少植物源性乙烯对作物生长和土壤功能的不利影响。这为未来面对气候变化的农业可持续管理提供了科学基础。

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来源期刊

Plant and Soil 农林科学-农艺学

CiteScore

8.20

自引率

8.20%

发文量

543

审稿时长

2.5 months

期刊介绍： Plant and Soil publishes original papers and review articles exploring the interface of plant biology and soil sciences, and that enhance our mechanistic understanding of plant-soil interactions. We focus on the interface of plant biology and soil sciences, and seek those manuscripts with a strong mechanistic component which develop and test hypotheses aimed at understanding underlying mechanisms of plant-soil interactions. Manuscripts can include both fundamental and applied aspects of mineral nutrition, plant water relations, symbiotic and pathogenic plant-microbe interactions, root anatomy and morphology, soil biology, ecology, agrochemistry and agrophysics, as long as they are hypothesis-driven and enhance our mechanistic understanding. Articles including a major molecular or modelling component also fall within the scope of the journal. All contributions appear in the English language, with consistent spelling, using either American or British English.