TY - JOUR

T1 - Tomato plants rather than fertilizers drive microbial community structure in horticultural growing media

AU - Grunert, Oliver

AU - Robles Aguilar, Ana Alejandra

AU - Hernandez-Sanabria, Emma

AU - Schrey, Sylvia

AU - Reheul, Dirk

AU - Van Labeke, Marie-Christine

AU - Vlaeminck, Siegfried E.

AU - Vandekerckhove, Tom G. L.

AU - Mysara, Mohamed

AU - Monsieurs, Pieter

AU - Temperton, Victoria

AU - Boon, Nico

AU - Jablonowski, Nicolai

N1 - 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).

PY - 2019/12/1

Y1 - 2019/12/1

N2 - 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.

AB - 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.

KW - Biology

KW - microbe

KW - fertilizer

KW - plant soil feedback

KW - nitrogen availability

KW - planar optode

KW - pH

KW - Sustainability Science

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85069269140&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1038/s41598-019-45290-0

DO - 10.1038/s41598-019-45290-0

M3 - Journal articles

C2 - 31266970

VL - 9

JO - Scientific Reports

JF - Scientific Reports

SN - 2045-2322

IS - 1

M1 - 9561

ER -