Applied Soil Ecology最新文献

{"title":"Mitomycin C-induced prophage activation for exploring the Lysogeny-lysis functional dynamics in situ","authors":"Ruoyi Xu ,&nbsp;Tida Ge ,&nbsp;Yuchuan Fan ,&nbsp;Lu Yang ,&nbsp;Ying Zhang ,&nbsp;Siqin Han ,&nbsp;Mark Radosevich ,&nbsp;Xiaolong Liang","doi":"10.1016/j.apsoil.2025.106436","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.apsoil.2025.106436","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Temperate phages, which alternate between lysogenic and lytic cycles, are key regulators of microbial communities and ecosystem functions. Yet, the ecological consequences of prophage activation in soil remain poorly understood. Here, we developed a novel in situ mitomycin C (MMC) induction assay to investigate the functional impacts of prophage activation on microbial communities and soil biogeochemistry. Using a gradient of MMC concentrations, we identified 0.1 μg/mL as an optimal dose that efficiently induced prophages with minimal cytotoxicity to non-lysogenic bacteria. Microcosm experiments in black and laterite soils revealed that prophage induction significantly altered bacterial community composition and diversity, and disrupted carbon and nitrogen cycling. Specifically, low-dose MMC treatments suppressed nitrogen mineralization, while higher doses impaired microbial respiration and reduced CO₂ and N₂O emissions. These findings demonstrate that prophage activation serves as a sensitive indicator of soil microbial dynamics and nutrient turnover, offering new insights into the roles of temperate phages in terrestrial ecosystem functioning.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":8099,"journal":{"name":"Applied Soil Ecology","volume":"215 ","pages":"Article 106436"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144922127","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Nitrogen source preference and community assembly shape microbial function in biological soil crusts of the Gurbantunggut Desert","authors":"Yuan Ma ,&nbsp;Qinghang Zhang ,&nbsp;Eryang Li ,&nbsp;Xiaohui Zhu ,&nbsp;Jie Lü","doi":"10.1016/j.apsoil.2025.106385","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.apsoil.2025.106385","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Biological soil crusts (BSCs) play vital roles in stabilizing desert soils, regulating nutrient cycles, and supporting plant establishment, making their spatial and temporal distribution key indicators of desert ecosystem stability. Using metagenomic sequencing, we analyzed microbial communities in bare sand, algal crusts, and moss crusts in the Gurbantunggut Desert, aiming to elucidate the connections between microbial dynamics and key ecological processes during BSC development to uncover how microscale microbial processes shape broader spatial ecosystem patterns. The three soil types exhibited distinct microbial communities and functional capacities, particularly in carbon fixation and nitrogen cycling processes. Microbial network complexity increased from bare sand to algal and moss crusts，with higher clustering in algal crusts and shorter connectivity paths in moss crusts, both indicating intensified microbial interactions and network cohesion. Algal crusts showed reduced prokaryotic carbon sequestration potential, likely driven by ammonium limitation that suppressed carbon cycling gene expression in heterotrophic taxa (e.g., Actinobacteria), while dominant Cyanobacteria sustained baseline photosynthesis to support early crust development. Differences in microbial nitrogen utilization strategies altered nitrogen cycling dynamics and contributed to niche differentiation among crust types. These shifts reflected strong environmental filtering, which shaped both microbial composition and functional potential across the successional gradient. Source tracking analysis indicates that bare ground was the primary microbial source during BSC succession and that microbial inheritance between crust types was selective rather than continuous. Our findings uncover key mechanisms driving microbial community assembly and succession in desert BSCs, offering new insights for ecological monitoring and restoration in arid environments.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":8099,"journal":{"name":"Applied Soil Ecology","volume":"215 ","pages":"Article 106385"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144922130","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Woody encroachment increases carbon degradation rates and alters soil microbial community structure in restored and remnant mesic tallgrass prairie","authors":"Kendall K. Beals ,&nbsp;Cooper Rosin ,&nbsp;Bradley M. Herrick ,&nbsp;Paul H. Zedler ,&nbsp;Isaac Bailey-Marren ,&nbsp;Zheng Yao ,&nbsp;Nicholas A. Barber","doi":"10.1016/j.apsoil.2025.106426","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.apsoil.2025.106426","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Grasslands store approximately one-third of the global terrestrial carbon stock and microbial communities in grassland soil play an essential role in soil carbon sequestration. Despite being vital carbon reservoirs, grasslands face many challenges to carbon sequestration, perhaps most notably conversion for agricultural use and encroachment by woody plants. We used a temperate grassland system consisting of a reconstructed tallgrass prairie and an adjacent never cultivated remnant prairie both undergoing woody encroachment to understand how management history and woody encroachment influence degradation rates of multiple forms of organic carbon and microbial community structure. We measured rates of hydrolytic carbon-degrading extracellular enzymes and used 16S and ITS amplicon sequence data to categorize bacterial and fungal taxa into microbial groups of potential carbon use efficiency. We found that extracellular enzyme rates were higher in the remnant site and in encroached soils. Additionally, microbial groups with low potential carbon use efficiency—which are expected to contribute to soil C release—were generally more prevalent in the remnant site and in encroached soils. This could suggest that higher rates of organic carbon degradation occur with lower potential microbial carbon use efficiency. Our results contradict the widely held notion that never-cultivated remnant grasslands are reliable carbon sinks and suggest that woody encroachment can promote C release from grassland soils.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":8099,"journal":{"name":"Applied Soil Ecology","volume":"215 ","pages":"Article 106426"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2025-08-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144920011","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Non-linear and contrasting responses of abundant, intermediate and rare prokaryotic phylotypes to environmental gradients in forests of East China","authors":"Guangxin Wang ,&nbsp;Shuhan Zhang ,&nbsp;Bin Hua ,&nbsp;Rong Mao ,&nbsp;Yang Zhang ,&nbsp;Anton A. Goncharov ,&nbsp;Ximei Zhang ,&nbsp;Xingguo Han ,&nbsp;Wei Yang","doi":"10.1016/j.apsoil.2025.106425","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.apsoil.2025.106425","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Forest ecosystems are facing challenges from the effects of global climate change, greatly threatening their ecosystem function. Soil prokaryotic community, consisted of a few abundant prokaryotes and a large number of rare prokaryotes, are proven to be critical in soil nutrient cycling. However, how they respond to environmental gradients, and whether these responses are non-linear is unknown. To address this issue, we collected 28 soil samples from forest ecosystems in Eastern China and examined their prokaryotic community using 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing. Totally, 120 abundant phylotypes were identified, which occupied only 0.06 % of the total ASV number but 27.14 % of the total sequence reads across all samples. Regression analysis and random forest analysis revealed that abundant phylotype significantly contributed to soil nutrient availability. The richness of abundant and intermediate phylotypes increased with the increasing pH before the threshold, while it decreased after the threshold. However, it is note worthing that the richness of rare phylotypes consistently increased with increasing pH before and after threshold. When examining the mean annual temperature threshold, the richness of abundant, intermediate and rare phylotypes all sharply decreased after the threshold, with higher thresholds for abundant phylotype (18.51 °C) and intermediate (18.47 °C) than rare phylotype (16.70 °C). TITAN analysis revealed that soil pH and aridity thresholds of abundant prokaryotic community were narrower than intermediate and rare prokaryotic communities, indicating the more sensitive responses of abundant phylotype along pH and aridity gradients. Overall, our findings confirmed the crucial roles of abundant phylotype in forest soil nutrient cycling, and highlighted the non-linear and contrasting responses of abundant, intermediate, and rare phylotypes to environmental gradients, which can be used for building effective strategies to maintain soil nutrient cycling with the ongoing global climate change.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":8099,"journal":{"name":"Applied Soil Ecology","volume":"215 ","pages":"Article 106425"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2025-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144917972","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Indicators of healthy rhizosphere soils exhibit limited cross-system generalizability under diverse cropping patterns and management strategies","authors":"Yi Ren ,&nbsp;Yi Xie ,&nbsp;Yuanyuan Yan ,&nbsp;Ruimin Li ,&nbsp;Hao Su ,&nbsp;Xing Zhou ,&nbsp;Jisong Qu ,&nbsp;Lijuan Zhang ,&nbsp;Zucong Cai ,&nbsp;Xinqi Huang","doi":"10.1016/j.apsoil.2025.106437","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.apsoil.2025.106437","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Soil abiotic and biotic environment plays a crucial role in plant health. Developing prediction models based on universal soil indicators is of great significance for effective plant health management. In this study, we evaluated plant health indicators by comparing the rhizosphere soils of healthy and <em>Fusarium</em> wilt diseased watermelon plants, and investigated the consistency of these indicators across diverse cropping patterns and soil management strategies. Our results indicated that healthy soils exhibited significant differences in many physicochemical properties, biological community structures compared to the diseased soils in specific cropping pattern and soil management strategy. However, there are extremely limited common differential characteristics across systems. Notably, healthy soils had consistently higher available potassium contents. Enhanced complexity and stability in soil microbial networks were observed in healthy soils, characterized by improved topological parameters, robustness, and reduced vulnerability. The negative cohesion of bacterial-fungal network was significantly heightened in healthy soils compared to diseased ones. Furthermore, we developed a straightforward and highly effective prediction model for watermelon health with over 85.0 % accuracy, integrating potassium levels and the relative abundances of two <em>Mortierella</em> species. Overall, our study revealed the limited consistency of most soil healthy indictors across various cropping systems and highlighted the importance of developing universal plant health prediction models.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":8099,"journal":{"name":"Applied Soil Ecology","volume":"215 ","pages":"Article 106437"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2025-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144917970","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Fungal-based soil food webs, not local plant nor abiotic properties, are most affected by rhizome-derived secondary metabolites of Japanese knotweed (Reynoutria japonica)","authors":"Feng Sun ,&nbsp;Matthieu Chauvat ,&nbsp;Evelyne Blanchard ,&nbsp;Pascal Cardinael ,&nbsp;Valérie Agasse ,&nbsp;Estelle Forey","doi":"10.1016/j.apsoil.2025.106416","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.apsoil.2025.106416","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Plant invasions are a major threat to native biodiversity. Allelopathy often plays an important role in suppressing native plants and soil organisms. Effects of these secondary metabolites on plant and soil micro-organisms are rather well known. However, the effects of allelopathy on several soil biota components, either direct or indirectly through alterations of basal resources, are still unresolved. Japanese knotweed (<em>Reynoutria japonica</em>), an east-Asian species, contains allelopathic secondary compounds inhibiting native plants and microbial communities in Europe. We conducted a comprehensive study to unravel the role of allelopathic compounds released by this species in shaping above (germination and growth of 9 different local species) and belowground (soil microbiota and fauna) assemblages. The experiment was designed to include or exclude secondary metabolites through activated carbon filtration of Japanese knotweed rhizome extract. After a three-month garden trial, fungal biomass remained unaffected, whereas bacterial biomass, several nematode trophic groups: bacterivores, fungivores, omnivorous-predators, and Collembola density, all declined in response to the extract. These negative effects were directly attributable to the allelopathic secondary compounds. Structural equation modeling revealed major changes in soil food-web structure, with a positive correlation between bacteria and bacterivores but a clear negative effect of allelopathy on the fungal- and Collembola-based energy channels. Interestingly, Japanese knotweed rhizome extract had little influence on local plant biomass and germination rates, indicating a decoupling between plant performance and belowground biological responses. Our study highlights the need to account for soil biota when assessing the ecological risks of invasive plants and developing management and restoration practices.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":8099,"journal":{"name":"Applied Soil Ecology","volume":"215 ","pages":"Article 106416"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2025-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144917971","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Effects of grazing exclusion and pasture management on soil microbial communities in Californian irrigated pastures","authors":"Madison L. Morris ,&nbsp;Danny J. Eastburn ,&nbsp;Leslie M. Roche ,&nbsp;Josh Davy ,&nbsp;Morgan Doran ,&nbsp;Betsy Karle ,&nbsp;David Lile ,&nbsp;Tracy Schohr ,&nbsp;Laura Snell ,&nbsp;Dan Macon ,&nbsp;Grace Woodmansee ,&nbsp;María Touceda-Suárez ,&nbsp;Albert Barberán","doi":"10.1016/j.apsoil.2025.106419","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.apsoil.2025.106419","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Grazing lands in California and across the globe are increasingly challenged to meet rising livestock product demands while simultaneously balancing diverse stakeholder and land management goals. An increasing focus on the soil health of grazed landscapes has enhanced our understanding of grazing impacts on sustainable agroecosystems. However, the scientific literature is limited on how the microbial community, as a component of soil health, responds to grazing, water, and soil nutrient management in irrigated pastures. We deployed a cross-sectional survey across 24 California irrigated pastures spanning multiple climate regimes and active management strategies. We established and maintained grazing exclosures for two years and collected soil samples from rested and grazed plots within each irrigated pasture. We used 16S rRNA and ITS amplicon sequencing to analyze soil bacteria and archaea, and soil fungi, respectively. Microbial diversity and community composition were not affected by grazing rest or management, but fungal Shannon diversity was significantly impacted by total nitrogen (TN; mixed linear effect model, <em>p</em> = 0.044). Bacterial/archaeal and fungal community compositions were significantly different between pastures (PERMANOVA; R² = 0.78, <em>p</em> &lt; 0.001 for 16S; R² = 0.71, p &lt; 0.001 for ITS). Soil properties were also significantly different between pastures (PERMANOVA, R² = 0.98, <em>p</em> = 0.001) and differed to a lesser extent based on the level of grazing, irrigation, and nutrient management efforts (R² = 0.022, <em>p</em> = 0.022). We found trends among microbial functional groups in response to grazing, but none of the impacts were statistically significant after accommodating false discovery errors. These results support a growing body of evidence that soil microorganisms are variably influenced by livestock grazing and are largely shaped by local vegetation and soil characteristics, both of which can vary based on geography and land management legacies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":8099,"journal":{"name":"Applied Soil Ecology","volume":"215 ","pages":"Article 106419"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2025-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144917969","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Soil hydrolases and microbial biomass regulate wetland CO2 emissions under warming and water level reduction","authors":"Mengyuan Zhu ,&nbsp;Yanyu Song ,&nbsp;Yisong Feng ,&nbsp;Mengting Li ,&nbsp;Huanhuan Feng ,&nbsp;Shouyang Luo ,&nbsp;Wenwen Tan ,&nbsp;Ning Chen ,&nbsp;Guangying Zhao ,&nbsp;Changchun Song","doi":"10.1016/j.apsoil.2025.106387","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.apsoil.2025.106387","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Changes in temperature and water level affect the wetland CO₂ emissions, while the response mechanism of marsh wetland CO₂ emissions to temperature and water synergistic change is still rare. We monitored the CO₂ emissions and analyzed their relationships with plant and soil properties in a typical marsh wetland of Sanjiang Plain, Northeast China. We utilized the open-top chamber (OTC) passive warming combined with the automatic water level control platform. Four treatments including control (CK), warming (W), water level reduction (WR), combined warming and water level reduction (WRW) were established. The results showed that the CO₂ flux in the growing season reached the maximum value of 425.26 mg·m⁻²·h⁻¹ in the WRW treatment. Warming under different water conditions promoted CO₂ emissions. Water level reduction interacted with warming and intensified CO₂ emissions. Combined warming and water level reduction significantly enhanced soil hydrolases activities, bacteria and <em>nir</em>K gene abundances, microbial biomass carbon and nitrogen (MBC and MBN) contents. Mantel test results revealed that soil β-glucosidase (BG), acid phosphatase (AP) activities, MBC, MBN contents, plant TC and soil temperature had a significant positive effect on cumulative CO₂ flux. The regression analysis demonstrated air and soil temperatures, plant height, chlorophyll content of <em>Carex lasiocarpa</em> were critical factors influencing the dynamic of CO₂ emissions in the marsh wetland of the Sanjiang Plain. This finding underscores the essential influence mechanism of hydrolases and MBC, MBN contents on CO₂ emissions from marsh wetland under warming and water level reduction conditions. Mitigating climate warming and enhancing wetland water levels to inhibit hydrolytic enzyme activity may reduce wetland CO₂ emissions and increase carbon sink.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":8099,"journal":{"name":"Applied Soil Ecology","volume":"215 ","pages":"Article 106387"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2025-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144917968","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Divergent regulation of nitrogen cycling genes under long-term organic and chemical fertilization in plateau cropland soils","authors":"Yingjun Ma ,&nbsp;Keqiang Zhang ,&nbsp;Shizhou Shen ,&nbsp;Huiying Du ,&nbsp;Fuyuan Liu ,&nbsp;Xingliang Gao ,&nbsp;Lianzhu Du ,&nbsp;Wenxuan Gao","doi":"10.1016/j.apsoil.2025.106424","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.apsoil.2025.106424","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The fertilization of agricultural soils has a crucial impact on the microbial communities and nutrient cycling within the soil. However, it remains unclear how long-term fertilization regimes regulate microbial-driven carbon (C) /nitrogen (N) processes in agroecosystems, particularly in ecologically vulnerable plateaus. Here, we integrated metagenomics and quantitative polymerase chain reaction techniques to explore fertilization-induced changes in microbial communities and genes governing C/N cycling, and assessed their linkages to biogeochemical processes in a typical plateau cropland after six-year amendments. The results indicated that among microbial taxa carrying functional genes for C/N cycling, <em>Nocardioides</em> and <em>Phycicoccus</em> were the most significant responses to fertilization. Long-term organic fertilization significantly increased the abundance of genes associated with nitrogen fixation, assimilatory nitrate reduction, and dissimilatory nitrate reduction, enhancing the potential for soil N acquisition and retention, and increasing soil total N content by 47.2 % to 2.84 g kg⁻¹. And long-term application of chemical fertilizer and combinations of chemical and organic fertilizers both enhanced soil methane oxidation potential via increased the abundance of <em>pmoA/B</em> (by 2.0- to 2.7-fold), yet increased N₂O production potential through different pathways: the former promoted incomplete denitrification genes (<em>nirK</em>, <em>norB</em>), while the latter increased nitrification genes (<em>amoA</em>, <em>amoB</em>, <em>nxrB</em>). Additionally, long-term chemical fertilization strengthened the dominance of <em>nar</em>- over <em>nap</em>-mediated nitrate reduction pathways, increasing the <em>narG</em> to <em>napA</em> gene abundance ratio by 85.5 %. In summary, this study revealed the effects of long-term applications of different fertilizer types on the community structures and functions of microorganisms involved in N and C cycling and provides a valuable reference for further understanding of nutrient cycling in agricultural soils.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":8099,"journal":{"name":"Applied Soil Ecology","volume":"215 ","pages":"Article 106424"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2025-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144912998","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Waste-derived organic soil amendments for a sustainable vineyard management: Linking microbiome responses to soil biochemistry","authors":"Elena Biagi ,&nbsp;Martina Mazzon ,&nbsp;Eliana Musmeci ,&nbsp;Paola Gioacchini ,&nbsp;Anna Paesano ,&nbsp;Fabio Fava ,&nbsp;Claudio Ciavatta ,&nbsp;Giulio Zanaroli ,&nbsp;Claudio Marzadori","doi":"10.1016/j.apsoil.2025.106406","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.apsoil.2025.106406","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Products obtained from various organic wastes recycling processes can represent sustainable alternatives to traditional fertilizers in vineyard management. In this study, three waste-derived organic-based amendments were applied consistently for the first three years from plantation in an experimental vineyard in Northern Italy. The amendments included municipal organic waste compost, sewage sludge compost, and ‘plasters’ derived from the alkaline hydrolysis and pH neutralization of sludges. Aim was exploring the effects of these amendments on soil biochemistry, including physicochemical properties and main enzymatic activities, together with soil microbiome variations. Microbial community composition was analyzed by bacterial 16S and fungal ITS regions sequencing and network analysis, also studying its correlations to changes in soil C and N pools. The matrices did not act as microbial inocula. Instead, they stimulated specific autochthonous microbial populations and had a deep and varied impact on the cumulative fungal and bacterial network of interactions. Compost-based amendments representing a source of recalcitrant carbon, significantly promoted soil biodiversity and increased microbial biomass. Sludge plasters, a more easily degradable C and N source, promoted the proliferation of copiotrophic bacteria and unexpectedly resulted in a deep rearrangement of the fungal population, leading to increased laccase activity. Although the organic matrices were applied considering their different susceptibility to release available N over time, by applying different mineralization coefficients, significant differences were found in the accumulation of soluble forms of N and C in soil, with the consequent differences in microbial compositional and functional responses. These findings suggest the need for in-depth studies to formulate specific guidelines for the use of compost-based matrices, and especially sludge plasters, in the field. Compost-based matrices behaved like soil amendments, while sludge plasters behaved like mineral fertilizers. Together they could be used to maintain soil fertility and meet plant nutritional needs.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":8099,"journal":{"name":"Applied Soil Ecology","volume":"215 ","pages":"Article 106406"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2025-08-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144906993","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}