Abstract
Priming effect (PE) is defined as a stimulation of the mineralization of soil organic matter (SOM) following a supply of fresh organic matter. This process can have important consequences on the fate of SOM and on the management of residues in agricultural soils, especially in tropical regions where soil fertility is essentially based on the management of organic matter. Earthworms are ecosystem engineers known to affect the dynamics of SOM. Endogeic earthworms ingest large amounts of soil and assimilate a part of organic matter it contains. During gut transit, microorganisms are transported to new substrates and their activity is stimulated by (i) the production of readily assimilable organic matter (mucus) and (ii) the possible presence of fresh organic residues in the ingested soil. The objective of our study was to see (i) whether earthworms impact the PE intensity when a fresh residue is added to a tropical soil and (ii) whether this impact is linked to a stimulation/inhibition of bacterial taxa, and which taxa are affected. A tropical soil from Madagascar was incubated in the laboratory, with a 13C wheat straw residue, in the presence or absence of a peregrine endogeic tropical earthworm, Pontoscolex corethrurus. Emissions of 12CO2 and 13CO2 were followed during 16 days. The coupling between DNA-SIP (stable isotope probing) and pyrosequencing showed that stimulation of both the mineralization of wheat residues and the PE can be linked to the stimulation of several groups especially belonging to the Bacteroidetes phylum.
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Acknowledgements
This work has been partly funded by the French ‘Agence Nationale pour la Recherche’ (program Génomique) and the ‘Institut National des Sciences de l’Univers’ (Appel d’Offre EC2CO, program MicroBien). We thank K Lemoal and the LRI staff in Madagascar for their technical help for the experiment settlement. We also thank P Tillard (BPMP, INRA, Montpellier, Fr) for the IRMS analyses and V Santoni (BPMP, INRA, Montpellier, Fr) to give us the access to the ultracentrifuge and helping to use it.
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Bernard, L., Chapuis-Lardy, L., Razafimbelo, T. et al. Endogeic earthworms shape bacterial functional communities and affect organic matter mineralization in a tropical soil. ISME J 6, 213–222 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2011.87
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2011.87
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