Mineral fertilization reduces the drought resistance of soil multifunctionality in a mountain grassland system through plant-soil interactions

Abstract

Increasing droughts threaten soil microbial communities and the multiple functions they control in agricultural soils. These soils are often fertilized with mineral nutrients, but it remains unclear how this fertilization may alter the capacity of soil multifunctionality (SMF) to be maintained under drought, and how plant-soil interactions shape these effects. In this study, we used a mountain grassland soil to test the interactive effect of mineral nutrient (Nitrogen and Phosphorous) addition and drought on SMF with and without plants (Lolium perenne) in a mesocosm experiment. We calculated SMF based on 8 microbial properties associated with the capacity of soil microbes to store carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and phosphorous (P) in their biomass, and to process these elements through organic matter depolymerization, mineralization, nitrification and denitrification processes. To investigate mechanisms underlying the SMF response we characterized the associated changes in soil stoichiometry and microbial community composition using 16S and 18S rRNA amplicon sequencing. Our results showed that fertilization decreased the SMF drought resistance when plants were present, but the opposite was observed in the unplanted mountain grassland soil. Our analysis suggested this was due to the interaction of plants, fertilization and drought in influencing four coupled properties related to high SMF: high soil moisture, low microbial C limitation, high bacterial diversity and low bacteria gram positive:gram negative ratio. Altogether, our results suggested that reducing the use of mineral fertilizer for plant production in mountain grassland could improve the ability of their soils to maintain their multifunctionality during drought period. Finally, our study clearly further demonstrated the importance of plant in the complex responses of SMF to global changes and showed that combining stoichiometric and microbial diversity assessment represents a powerful approach to disentangle the underlying mechanisms.