Microbial community structure and functional metabolic diversity are associated with organic carbon availability in an agricultural soil

Exploration of soil environmental characteristics governing soil microbial community structure and activity may improve our understanding of biogeochemical processes and soil quality. The impact of soil environmental characteristics especially organic carbon availability after 15-yr different organic and inorganic fertilizer inputs on soil bacterial community structure and functional metabolic diversity of soil microbial communities were evaluated in a 15-yr fertilizer experiment in Changping County, Beijing, China. The experiment was a wheat-maize rotation system which was established in 1991 including four different fertilizer treatments. These treatments included： a non-amended control（CK）, a commonly used application rate of inorganic fertilizer treatment（NPK）; a commonly used application rate of inorganic fertilizer with swine manure incorporated treatment（NPKM）, and a commonly used application rate of inorganic fertilizer with maize straw incorporated treatment（NPKS）. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis（DGGE） of the 16 S r RNA gene was used to determine the bacterial community structure and single carbon source utilization profiles were determined to characterize the microbial community functional metabolic diversity of different fertilizer treatments using Biolog Eco plates. The results indicated that long-term fertilized treatments significantly increased soil bacterial community structure compared to CK. The use of inorganic fertilizer with organic amendments incorporated for long term（NPKM, NPKS） significantly promoted soil bacterial structure than the application of inorganic fertilizer only（NPK）, and NPKM treatment was the most important driver for increases in the soil microbial community richness（S） and structural diversity（H）. Overall utilization of carbon sources by soil microbial communities（average well color development, AWCD） and microbial substrate utilization diversity and evenness indices（H＇ and E） indicated that long-term inorganic fertilizer with organic amendments incorporated（NPKM, NPKS） could significantly stimulate soil microbial metabolic activity and functional diversity relative to CK, while no differences of them were found between NPKS and NPK treatments. Principal component analysis（PCA） based on carbon source utilization profiles also showed significant separation of soil microbial community under long-term fertilization regimes and NPKM treatment was significantly separated from the other three treatments primarily according to the higher microbial utilization of carbohydrates, carboxylic acids, polymers, phenolic compounds, and amino acid, while higher utilization of amines/amides differed soil microbial community in NPKS treatment from those in the other three treatments. Redundancy analysis（RDA） indicated that soil organic carbon（SOC） availability, especially soil microbial biomass carbon（Cmic） and Cmic/SOC ratio are the key factors of soil environmental characteristics contributing to the increase of both soil microbial community structure and functional metabolic diversity in the long-term fertilization trial. Our results showed that long-term inorganic fertilizer and swine manure application could significantly improve soil bacterial community structure and soil microbial metabolic activity through the increases in SOC availability, which could provide insights into the sustainable management of China＇s soil resource.

Seed Size as Key Factor in Germination and Seedling Development of Copaifera langsdorffii(Fabaceae)

Seed size is a plastic trait of the plants that directly affect seed germination and seedling recruitment. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between seed size, seed germinability and seedling performance of Copaifera langsdorffii by testing four hypotheses: 1) larger seeds have higher germination percentage;2) smaller seeds require less time to germinate and for initial development of the seedlings;3) larger seeds produce more vigorous seedlings and 4) seed size negatively affects seedling root/shoot ratio. In 2011, we selected 30 individuals of C. langsdorffii from which 300 seeds were randomly collected in the plant canopy. All these seeds were weighted and placed in germination tray using vermiculite as substrate. Seed germinability and initial development of seedlings were monitored daily until cotyledons fell. Small seeds have higher germination percentage and germinate faster when compared to large seeds. Nonetheless, seedlings originated from larger seeds have longer development times, resulting in more vigorous seedlings. In addition, seedlings originating from small seeds allocate proportionally greater amount of resources to roots when compared to larger seeds. The fact that small seeds have higher germination percentage and faster germination favors the colonization of transient habitats. However, larger seeds produce more vigorous seedlings, favoring the seedling establishment in more stable habitats. Thus, we argue that high variability in seed size of C. langsdorffii favors its widespread geographic distribution.

Volatile organic compound emissions from straw-amended agricultural soils and their relations to bacterial communities:A laboratory study

A laboratory study was conducted to investigate volatile organic compound（VOC） emissions from agricultural soil amended with wheat straw and their associations with bacterial communities for a period of 66 days under non-flooded and flooded conditions. The results indicated that ethene, propene, ethanol, i-propanol, 2-butanol, acetaldehyde, acetone,2-butanone, 2-pentanone and acetophenone were the 10 most abundant VOCs, making up over 90% of the total VOCs released under the two water conditions. The mean emission of total VOCs from the amended soils under the non-flooded condition（5924 ng C/（kg·hr）） was significantly higher than that under the flooded condition（2211 ng C/（kg·hr））. One ＂peak emission window＂ appeared at days 0–44 or 4–44, and over 95% of the VOC emissions occurred during the first month under the two water conditions. Bacterial community analysis using denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis（DGGE） showed that a relative increase of Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes and γ-Proteobacteria but a relative decrease of Acidobacteria with time were observed after straw amendments under the two water conditions. Cluster analysis revealed that the soil bacterial communities changed greatly with incubation time, which was in line with the variation of the VOC emissions over the experimental period. Most of the above top 10 VOCs correlated positively with the predominant bacterial species of Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes and Verrucomicrobia but correlated negatively with the dominant bacterial species of Actinobacteria under the two water conditions. These results suggested that bacterial communities might play an important role in VOC emissions from straw-amended agricultural soils.

Control systems and data management for high-power laser facilities

The next generation of high-power lasers enables repetition of experiments at orders of magnitude higher frequency than what was possible using the prior generation.Facilities requiring human intervention between laser repetitions need to adapt in order to keep pace with the new laser technology.A distributed networked control system can enable laboratory-wide automation and feedback control loops.These higher-repetition-rate experiments will create enormous quantities of data.A consistent approach to managing data can increase data accessibility,reduce repetitive data-software development and mitigate poorly organized metadata.An opportunity arises to share knowledge of improvements to control and data infrastructure currently being undertaken.We compare platforms and approaches to state-of-the-art control systems and data management at high-power laser facilities,and we illustrate these topics with case studies from our community.