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Phosphorus addition enhances gross microbial N cycling in phosphorus-poor soils: a 15N study from two long-term fertilization experiments

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A Correction to this article was published on 09 July 2018

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Abstract

The tight coupling between nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) suggests that P availability may affect soil microbial N dynamics in terrestrial ecosystems. However, how P addition affects the internal N transformations in P-deficient agricultural soil remains poorly understood. We hypothesized that an increase in gross microbial N rates in P-deficient soil should occur after long-term P inputs in agricultural soils. We thus conducted a 15N pool dilution experiment to quantify the gross microbial N transformation rates after long-term mineral fertilizer applications in an upland fluvo-aquic soil (from Fengqiu with pH 8.55) and upland red soil (from Qiyang with pH 5.49) in China. We found that P addition significantly enhanced the gross N mineralization and immobilization rates when N and K were also applied, probably due to the increased soil total C and N concentrations at both soils. Also, gross nitrification rate was stimulated by P addition, perhaps because of enhanced gross N mineralization rates and associated NH4+ substrate availability. Our results showed that long-term P addition may stimulate soil gross N dynamics and hence increase overall N availability for crops in P-deficient agricultural soils.

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Change history

  • 09 July 2018

    The original version of this article, unfortunately, contained errors. Corrections in the Table 1 and “Results and discussion” section are presented in this article.

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Acknowledgments

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers 41671231, 41571294), the High-Level Talent Start-Up Research Project of Nanjing Forestry University (grant numbers GXL2018012), and the National Key Research and Development Program of China (grant numbers 2017YFD0200103, 2017YFD0800106).

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Author notes

  1. Yi Cheng and Jing Wang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Geography Sciences, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, 210023, China

    Yi Cheng & Zucong Cai

  2. College of Forestry, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, 210037, China

    Jing Wang

  3. Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences/National Engineering Laboratory for Improving Quality of Arable Land, Beijing, 100081, China

    Nan Sun & Minggang Xu

  4. Jiangsu Center for Collaborative Innovation in Geographical Information Resource Development and Application, Nanjing, 210023, China

    Jinbo Zhang

  5. State Key Laboratory Cultivation Base of Geographical Environment Evolution (Jiangsu Province), Nanjing, 210023, China

    Jinbo Zhang

  6. Key Laboratory of Virtual Geographic Environment (Nanjing Normal University), Ministry of Education, Nanjing, 210023, China

    Zucong Cai

  7. State Key Laboratory of Soil and Sustainable Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, 210008, China

    Shenqiang Wang

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  1. Yi Cheng
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  2. Jing Wang
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  3. Nan Sun
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  4. Minggang Xu
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  5. Jinbo Zhang
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Correspondence to Jinbo Zhang.

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Cheng, Y., Wang, J., Sun, N. et al. Phosphorus addition enhances gross microbial N cycling in phosphorus-poor soils: a 15N study from two long-term fertilization experiments. Biol Fertil Soils 54, 783–789 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00374-018-1294-5

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