Effects of plastic film mulching on soil microbial carbon metabolic activity and functional diversity at different maize growth stages in cool, semi-arid regions

作者：Meng Kong, Mingjing Huang, Zhi-Xian Zhang, Jiang Long, Kadambot H. M. Siddique, Dongmei Zhang · 发表于：Frontiers in Microbiology · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.3389/fmicb.2024.1492149 · 被引用次数：23 · 研究领域：Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics、Microbial Community Ecology and Physiology、Plant-Microbe Interactions and Immunity

Introduction: Plastic film mulching has been widely used to enhance soil hydrothermal conditions and increase crop yields in cool, semi-arid areas. However, its impact on soil microbial carbon metabolic activity and functional diversity during plant growth remains unclear despite their important roles in nutrient cycling and soil quality evaluation. Methods: This study used the Biolog EcoPlate technique to investigate the dynamics and driving factors of soil microbial carbon metabolic activity and functional diversity at different maize growth stages following plastic film mulching. Results and discussion: The results revealed that film mulching significantly increased microbial carbon metabolic activities [represented by average well color development (AWCD)] by 300% at the seedling stage and by 26.8% at maturity but decreased it by 47.4% at the flowering stage compared to the control (without mulching). A similar trend was observed for the microbial functional diversity index. Redundancy analysis identified soil moisture (SM), soil temperature (ST), dissolved organic carbon (DOC), microbial biomass carbon (MBC), and bacteria amounts as the primary factors influencing changes in soil microbial carbon source utilization. The mulch treatment significantly increased SM at all growth stages, while its warming effect disappeared at the flowering stage. Soil DOC, MBC, and bacterial populations were notably higher under mulching at the seedling and maturity stages but lower at the ...