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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, November 2007, p. 6876-6884, Vol. 73, No. 21
0099-2240/07/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/AEM.01536-07
Copyright © 2007, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Impact of Plant Functional Group, Plant Species, and Sampling Time on the Composition of nirK-Type Denitrifier Communities in Soil{triangledown} ,{dagger}

Christina Bremer,1 Gesche Braker,1* Diethart Matthies,2 Andreas Reuter,3 Christof Engels,4 and Ralf Conrad1

Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, Marburg,1 Department of Biology, Philipps University Marburg, Marburg,2 Faculty of Biology, Chemistry and Geosciences, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth,3 Faculty of Agrosciences, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany4

Received 6 July 2007/ Accepted 22 August 2007

We studied the influence of eight nonleguminous grassland plant species belonging to two functional groups (grasses and forbs) on the composition of soil denitrifier communities in experimental microcosms over two consecutive years. Denitrifier community composition was analyzed by terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) of PCR-amplified nirK gene fragments coding for the copper-containing nitrite reductase. The impact of experimental factors (plant functional group, plant species, sampling time, and interactions between them) on the structure of soil denitrifier communities (i.e., T-RFLP patterns) was analyzed by canonical correspondence analysis. While the functional group of a plant did not affect nirK-type denitrifier communities, plant species identity did influence their composition. This effect changed with sampling time, indicating community changes due to seasonal conditions and a development of the plants in the microcosms. Differences in total soil nitrogen and carbon, soil pH, and root biomass were observed at the end of the experiment. However, statistical analysis revealed that the plants affected the nirK-type denitrifier community composition directly, e.g., through root exudates. Assignment of abundant T-RFs to cloned nirK sequences from the soil and subsequent phylogenetic analysis indicated a dominance of yet-unknown nirK genotypes and of genes related to nirK from denitrifiers of the order Rhizobiales. In conclusion, individual species of nonleguminous plants directly influenced the composition of denitrifier communities in soil, but environmental conditions had additional significant effects.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, Karl-von-Frisch-Strasse, D-35043 Marburg, Germany. Phone: 49-6421-178-733. Fax: 49-6421-178-999. E-mail: braker{at}mpi-marburg.mpg.de

{triangledown} Published ahead of print on 31 August 2007.

{dagger} Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://aem.asm.org/.

Applied and Environmental Microbiology, November 2007, p. 6876-6884, Vol. 73, No. 21
0099-2240/07/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/AEM.01536-07
Copyright © 2007, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



This article has been cited by other articles:

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  • Pratscher, J., Stichternoth, C., Fichtl, K., Schleifer, K.-H., Braker, G. (2009). Application of Recognition of Individual Genes-Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization (RING-FISH) To Detect Nitrite Reductase Genes (nirK) of Denitrifiers in Pure Cultures and Environmental Samples. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 75: 802-810 [Abstract] [Full Text]  


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