Tomato plants rather than fertilizers drive microbial community structure in horticultural growing media

Publikation: Beiträge in ZeitschriftenZeitschriftenaufsätzeForschungbegutachtet

Authors

  • Oliver Grunert
  • Ana Alejandra Robles Aguilar
  • Emma Hernandez-Sanabria
  • Sylvia Schrey
  • Dirk Reheul
  • Marie-Christine Van Labeke
  • Siegfried E. Vlaeminck
  • Tom G. L. Vandekerckhove
  • Mohamed Mysara
  • Pieter Monsieurs
  • Victoria Temperton
  • Nico Boon
  • Nicolai Jablonowski
Synthetic fertilizer production is associated with a high environmental footprint, as compounds typically dissolve rapidly leaching emissions to the atmosphere or surface waters. We tested two recovered nutrients with slower release patterns, as promising alternatives for synthetic fertilizers: struvite and a commercially available organic fertilizer. Using these fertilizers as nitrogen source, we conducted a rhizotron experiment to test their effect on plant performance and nutrient recovery in juvenile tomato plants. Plant performance was significantly improved when organic fertilizer was provided, promoting higher shoot biomass. Since the microbial community influences plant nitrogen availability, we characterized the root-associated microbial community structure and functionality. Analyses revealed distinct root microbial community structure when different fertilizers were supplied. However, plant presence significantly increased the similarity of the microbial community over time, regardless of fertilization. Additionally, the presence of the plant significantly reduced the potential ammonia oxidation rates, implying a possible role of the rhizosheath microbiome or nitrification inhibition by the plant. Our results indicate that nitrifying community members are impacted by the type of fertilizer used, while tomato plants influenced the potential ammonia-oxidizing activity of nitrogen-related rhizospheric microbial communities. These novel insights on interactions between recovered fertilizers, plant and associated microbes can contribute to develop sustainable crop production systems.
OriginalspracheEnglisch
Aufsatznummer9561
ZeitschriftScientific Reports
Jahrgang9
Ausgabenummer1
Anzahl der Seiten15
ISSN2045-2322
DOIs
PublikationsstatusErschienen - 01.12.2019

Bibliographische Notiz

Funding Information:
O.G. was supported by the project grant IWT Baekeland mandate 120200 and E.H.-S. by the Research Foundation of Flanders (Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek-Vlaanderen, FWO). A.A.R.-A. was supported by ManureEcoMine project, funded by the European Community’s Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under Grant Agreement n° 603744. S.D.S. was supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the PuresBio and BioDisko project [grant numbers 031A289A and 031B0406C, respectively]. T.V. was funded by the Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology (IWT Flanders) [grant number SB-141205]. We appreciate the technical help in the climate chamber provided by Beate Uhlig and Marcel Schneider. We kindly thank Stephan Blossfeld for the support in the optodes setup and analyses, and Phil Pstrong and Lucy Harrison for helping in the experimental setup and weekly measurements.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, The Author(s).

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