Glucose is widely used to study the dynamics of easily available organics in soil. Pure culture studies have revealed that many microorganisms can sense and respond to glucose through chemosensory mechanisms that are not directly reliant on energy catabolism. However, the rapid mineralization of glucose by microorganisms makes it difficult to disentangle its energy effects from such non‐catabolic interactions. “Non‐metabolizable” glucose analogues have proven useful in mechanistic studies of glucose in pure culture, but have never been applied to complex microbial communities in soil. We sought to determine how their mineralization in soil differs from that of glucose, and whether they have potential as a new approach for investigating chemosensory mechanisms in soil microbiology. We incubated soil from an agricultural Haplic Luvisol under controlled conditions for 24 d and monitored CO 2 efflux after addition of (1) glucose, and three “non‐metabolizable” glucose analogues: (2) 2‐deoxyglucose (DG), (3) α‐methylglucoside (αMG), and (4) 3‐ O ‐methyl‐glucose (OMG), at three concentration levels, along with a control. All three analogues did in fact produce a large increase in soil CO 2 efflux, but the dynamics of their mineralization differed from the rapid degradation seen for glucose. At medium and high concentrations, CO 2 efflux peaked between 2.5 and 4 d after amendment with DG and αMG, and was delayed by about one week for OMG. The markedly different patterns of mineralization between glucose and OMG offer a new tool for investigating the behavior of glucose in soil. By using OMG as a glucose model, chemosensory mechanisms could be studied with limited interference from energy catabolism.
The stability and decomposition of biochar are fundamental to understand its persistence in soil, its contribution to carbon (C) sequestration, and thus its role in the global C cycle. Our current knowledge about the degradability of biochar, however, is limited. Using 128 observations of biochar‐derived CO 2 from 24 studies with stable ( 13 C) and radioactive ( 14 C) carbon isotopes, we meta‐analyzed the biochar decomposition in soil and estimated its mean residence time ( MRT ). The decomposed amount of biochar increased logarithmically with experimental duration, and the decomposition rate decreased with time. The biochar decomposition rate varied significantly with experimental duration, feedstock, pyrolysis temperature, and soil clay content. The MRT s of labile and recalcitrant biochar C pools were estimated to be about 108 days and 556 years with pool sizes of 3% and 97%, respectively. These results show that only a small part of biochar is bioavailable and that the remaining 97% contribute directly to long‐term C sequestration in soil. The second database (116 observations from 21 studies) was used to evaluate the priming effects after biochar addition. Biochar slightly retarded the mineralization of soil organic matter ( SOM ; overall mean: −3.8%, 95% CI = −8.1–0.8%) compared to the soil without biochar addition. Significant negative priming was common for studies with a duration shorter than half a year (−8.6%), crop‐derived biochar (−20.3%), fast pyrolysis (−18.9%), the lowest pyrolysis temperature (−18.5%), and small application amounts (−11.9%). In contrast, biochar addition to sandy soils strongly stimulated SOM mineralization by 20.8%. This indicates that biochar stimulates microbial activities especially in soils with low fertility. Furthermore, abiotic and biotic processes, as well as the characteristics of biochar and soils, affecting biochar decomposition are discussed. We conclude that biochar can persist in soils on a centennial scale and that it has a positive effect on SOM dynamics and thus on C sequestration.
Microbial uptake and utilisation are the main transformation pathways of low molecular weight organic substances (LMWOS) in soil, but details on transformations are strongly limited. As various LMWOS classes enter biochemical cycles at different steps, we hypothesize that the percentage of their carbon (C) incorporation into microbial biomass and consequently stabilisation in soil are different. Representatives of the three main groups of LMWOS: amino acids (alanine, glutamate), sugars (glucose, ribose) and carboxylic acids (acetate, palmitate) – were applied at naturally-occurring concentrations into a loamy arable Luvisol in a field experiment. Incorporation of 13C from these LMWOS into extractable microbial biomass (EMB) and into phospholipid fatty acids (PLFAs) was investigated 3 d and 10 d after application. The microbial utilisation of LMWOS for cell membrane construction was estimated by replacement of PLFA-C with 13C. 35–80% of initially applied LMWOS-13C was still present in the composition of soil organic matter after 10 days of experiment, with 10–24% of 13C incorporation into EMB at day three and 1–15% at day 10. Maximal incorporation of 13C into EMB was observed from sugars and the least from amino acids. Strong differences in microbial utilisation between LMWOS were observed mainly at day 10. Thus, despite similar initial rapid uptake by microorganisms, further metabolism within microbial cells accounts for the specific fate of C from various LMWOS in soils. 13C from each LMWOS was incorporated into each PLFA. This reflects the ubiquitous utilisation of all LMWOS by all functional microbial groups. The preferential incorporation of palmitate into PLFAs reflects its role as a direct precursor for fatty acids. Higher 13C incorporation from alanine and glucose into specific PLFAs compared to glutamate, ribose and acetate reflects the preferential use of glycolysis-derived substances in the fatty acids synthesis. Gram-negative bacteria (16:1ω7c and 18:1ω7c) were the most abundant and active in LMWOS utilisation. Their high activity corresponds to a high demand for anabolic products, e.g. to dominance of pentose-phosphate pathway, i.e. incorporation of ribose-C into PLFAs. The 13C incorporation from sugars and amino acids into filamentous microorganisms was lower than into all prokaryotic groups. However, for carboxylic acids, the incorporation was in the same range (0.1–0.2% of the applied carboxylic acid 13C) as that of gram-positive bacteria. This may reflect the dominance of fungi and other filamentous microorganisms for utilisation of acidic and complex organics. Thus, we showed that despite similar initial uptake, C from individual LMWOS follows deviating metabolic pathways which accounts for the individual fate of LMWOS-C over 10 days. Consequently, stabilisation of C in soil is mainly connected with its incorporation into microbial compounds of various stability and not with its initial microbial uptake.
The effect of different shading periods of wheat or maize on short-term changes of soil organic matter (SOM) decomposition in the rhizosphere was investigated by using 13C natural abundance. Cultivation of wheat (C3 plant) on Haplic Chernozem (C4 soil) increased SOM decomposition intensity (positive priming effect). 13C natural abundance allows tracing of the dynamics of the priming effect depending on the light-on events. In contrast to wheat, cultivation of maize (C4 plant) on Chromic Luvisol (C3 soil) decreased SOM mineralization compared to unplanted soil (negative priming effect). Prolonged and strongly prolonged dark periods reduced the changes of SOM decomposition in the rhizosphere induced by maize under normal day/night cycles. Both investigated plant-soil pairs show tight coupling of short-term SOM decomposition with photosynthesis intensity.
The complexity of ecosystem processes, especially under continuously changing environmental conditions, requires high-resolution insight into ecosystem car
